Am I Supposed to Call this Home?
by LuxBunny
Summary: After trying to cheat on a Pokemon sapphire she bought from an old lady, a girl is sucked into Hoenn. She tries to get home while dealing with all the usual challenges of a Pokemon journey, trying to not be turned into a Pokemon herself, perverted people and pokemon, and the friends she makes along the way. Adventure/Humor/Romance. Will have lemons.
1. That's the Last Time

**Quick Notes:** Hello, welcome to the first chapter of this story. It's going to be a long adventure. It'll be weird and have some good sex scenes once it all gets rolling. There's not much I wanted to say, so here we go!

**That's the Last Time**

_Ughhh…this is so boring._ She thought to herself as she stared at the clock in the room, _ Just ring already, you stupid bell! _

This was the last class of the day, and then onto Spring Break! She could kick back and chill out for a week with no homework and do pretty much whatever she wanted for a whole week without being pestered about half-completed homework or dosing off in class by her teachers. Just an Algebra test was blocking her path to the exit. She was almost done, but then would still have to wait another 10 minutes before the school was let out.

Twirling her long, dark brown hair and tapping her foot was helping the time passed as she thought about what was planned for the next week. Trying some new unfamiliar drug with her friends called 'DMT' would probably be the highlight of it. The four of them usually passed time smoking weed and gorging themselves on whatever food they could make and find. It was all in good fun and never ceased to be entertaining.

Despite very sluggishly walking to the teacher's desk to turn her test in and doing the same on the way back, only a minute had passed. 1:57. Another silent groan.

There was also some concert that Lynn wanted her to see with her, but it was 18+, and neither of them had had any ideas as to how to get themselves in there without paying off the security with money they didn't have, or doing less desirable things.

_Riiiiiing!_ The bell finally went off, interrupting her thoughts before they got to a place she really didn't want to think about. "YES!" She yelled, "Finally, I'm out of here!", grabbing her bag and running out the door, not caring if people stared because of her outburst.

Fresh air and sunshine felt nice after being cramped in dank rooms all day, cramped in desks more suited to elementary school students. "Hey, Paige, over here!" she called out to her friend, who had been talking to a classmate. The short, blonde girl looked around for a moment before spotting where her name had been called from. Saying a few more words to her classmate, she rushed over with a smile.

"Thanks for that, I think he was hitting on me, and I wasn't sure how to say no if I had to," she said.

She laughed some, earning a red face from Paige, just making her laugh more.

"Shut up! I'm not used to boys talking to me like that…" She trailed off awkwardly. "Anyways, how did your test go?"

"Hell if I know, let's get out of this place!" She said with triumph. "Where was it you wanted to go again, Paige?"

"You really should care more about your grades, you know…" the only response was a non-chalant shrug. "It's the Aurora Spring Fair, remember? It happens every year. So let's go meet my mom in the parking lot."

They were to the Aurora High's parking lot, in the van, and on their way in just a couple minutes. "Thank you so much for picking us up, Mrs. Barron, how was your day?" She greeted Paige's mom with her parent-friendly smile.

"You're welcome," she started, but as usual, she had a little more to say. "Just know that you won't be staying out late, because she doesn't need to be around any other shady characters."

_Oh yeah, that smile never worked with Paige's mom, _"Haha, funny as usual, Mrs. Barron."

"That wasn't nice, mom!" She complained. "Grades aren't a reflection of character."

After some awkward silence, Paige and her talked the rest of the half-hour or so drive from there. When they got out, they said their goodbyes. As with anytime she was with Mrs. Barron's daughter, she was given the look that said "I will know if try to pull something behind my back." She returned the mom's stern look with a glowing and probably less-than-reassuring smile before the two teens went on their way.

They spent most of the time standing lines way too long for rides that were quite frankly, just a little lame. Next was food. Oh so healthy and not-at-all overpriced carnival food. A giant corn dog for her, a grease-soaked slab of Canadian bacon & pineapple pizza, plus huge cups of soda for each.

Paige was holding her stomach and making a face as they walked away from the undercover dining area. "I think I'm going to be sick."

"Told you a little thing like you shouldn't be eating so much." It was true; the blonde was the shortest one in her group of friends, by four inches. "We missed a few rides. Maybe it would be a good time for the Scrambler?"

Groaning and ignoring her friend, she went on, "Let's just go look at some of the tents."

Many of them had necklaces, small inflatable things, key chains, spin the wheels where you didn't win anything cool, stuff that looked like it was rejected for an infomercial, and various other cheap things that didn't catch either of the girls' attentions.

They were starting to get tired when they came across a table that finally drew their eyes for the right reasons. There were old Gameboy Color and Gameboy Advance games laid out throughout the table. The Legend of Zelda, Metroid, Donkey Kong, Harvest Moon, Fire Emblem; they were all there! All except one, the most important and best game ever on the GBA: Pokémon.

There was an old lady sitting there hunched-over, apparently in charge of the shop. Her eyes were closed and she did not appear to be reacting to any of the buzz going on at the fair.

Looking to Paige she quietly started, "Um, is she as—"

"How may I help you pretty, young children?" Apparently awake, the woman's rough voice frightened them from their confusion. She had some sort of shawl over her head and wore a boring dress that sort of made her look like a blob without much shape. Her olive skin looked rough and her hair was not at all brushed. There was also an odd odor emanating from the area.

Looking at each other for a moment, unsure if they wanted to stick around and talk to the strange, excited woman, Paige urged her friend to speak, too nervous to herself. Rolling her eyes, she tentatively spoke. "I noticed you have a fine assortment of games here, and…" The lady eagerly nodded. "I can't find any Pokémon games on the table—"

"Oh yes, I have! Wait here, girls." Leaving with a smile, she disappears behind a curtain for a moment before reappearing with the exact same expression on her face. In her hand were several bright, multi-colored cartridges of two different shapes. From left to right there was Pokémon Red, Pokémon Silver, Pokémon Yellow, and the only small cartridge was Pokémon Sapphire.

Looking them all over quickly before making her final decision to make sure they weren't broken, she asked, "How much ar—"

"10 dollars American," the hag interrupted again.

_Well yeah, what else would we be giving you? Pounds?_ "Here, I'll take the one on the far right." She grabbed it before the lady did and instead putting the $10 bill she had in her hand. They got out of their as quickly as they can. After they had walked away far enough, she grumbled, well, there goes my weed money for this weekend."

"At least this will last you longer. Oh, I think my mom is calling. Yeah, it's her," Paige takes out her phone, and after some "Mhms" and "Yeahs", she hangs up. "She's at the same place she dropped us off and wants us to hurry over so she doesn't get a ticket." There's a short pause before she quietly says, "But, uh, let's never talk about that ever again, okay?" the girl shivers, disturbed by their encounter with the creepy old woman.

"Agreed." The rest of the walk to the car is carried out in awkward silence.

After some more awkward silence in the car, and Paige assuring her mom that everything is okay and they had a great time, they finally started talking again. "What are you going to name yourself?" The younger Barron looked to her friend, who had a look of confusion. "In Sapphire, what are you going to name your character?"

"Oh! I hadn't thought about it what to name myself, but I do know I want to start with Treecko; he's so cute!" She almost always started with Treecko because they seemed to battle the best of the three starters.

Giggling, her blonde friend said, "Only you would think a lizard is cute," to which she received a stuck-out tongue in response. "Hmm… How about Meri? It's Finnish for 'ocean'. It seems appropriate since Kyogre created the oceans and all."

"And only you would know Finnish words. How do I spell it?"

"M-e-r-i!" Paige merrily said each letter.

Taking it out of her pocket, she stared, taking in the sight of the translucent blue cartridge. _Wait, what the hell is this? _It wasn't a crack or a scratch. Kyogre's colors had been changed. The white was still in the right place, but the red and blue had switched places. She must not have noticed when she was at the table because of how freaked out she was by the foreign woman who had sold it to her. _Crap, it must be a hack_, she thought, frustrated._ That's the last time I trust an old woman at a carnival. _

They reached her home about 7 and was promptly kicked out of the car. "Thanks again, Mrs. Barron, you're totally awesome! Bye, Paige, see ya around, girl!"

Mrs. Barron just rolled her eyes and drove off while her daughter called out, waving and smiling. "Byyyye!"

Opening the door and walking inside, she announced her presence, "Hey, I'm home!" and as usual, her parents were not. Being greeted with the usual silence, she threw her backpack on the floor. Normally, at this point, she would also throw her pants off, run to the computer, open the window, smoke a bowl, and look at porn with a hand between her legs. However, tonight was different. Tonight she would be playing a third generation Pokémon game for the first time in several years, and she was excited, even if it was a hacked game.

She sighed and then said aloud to herself, "Oh well, it's not like we can go back now…or really want to, for that matter."

Despite how it looked on the outside, the intro and start screen were completely normal. She went through Professor Birch's introduction to the Pokémon world making herself a girl, as she had always done. _What was I going to name myself? Oh yeah!_ Thinking back to the car ride home, she typed the name into the game, "M-e-r-i!"

She ended up naming her rival Seth. It didn't really matter much, so one of the default suggested names was suitable.

Her character was in the back of the moving truck for a few seconds before it opened up. Stepping out, the feelings of playing Pokémon Ruby in the past, bringing with it floods of nostalgia. Going through all of the familiar motions of setting the clock, not quite catching her dad on TV, meeting her neighbor, saving the Professor with her beloved Treecko, and being sent to fetch his son were all the same as before. _Exactly like I remembered,_ she let her inner grin show. It wasn't like anyone could see her grinning like an idiot in this empty house.

It was easy to make it to Oldale town in no time. All she had to do was defeat a single Zigzagoon and catch another on the way for its Pickup ability. Now that she was here, she could do the glitch she had discovered on her second time playing through the game. She never told anyone about it, so it had stayed her special little secret.

There was a guy who would block the way to route 102 because he thought he saw a rare Pokémon's tracks, but it turned out to be nothing after you beat your rival and got the running shoes. It was an accidental find. She walked over to where the tracks were, but then hit start on accident. It wouldn't let her exit out of the menu, so she decided to use an escape rope because why not? When she went to the Pokémart for the first time, she found that she 999999 Pokédollars! Since then, she has always done the trick. She saved her game in preparation before doing it, just in case she messed it up.

Pressing the left directional button she walked right to where the jerk was studying his own footprints. Before he could turn and bitch at her, she pressed start at the perfect time. _First try, yes! Now time to use an escape rope and get my money._ It was just a couple seconds before she found the needed item and used it.

The screen was black for a second, as expected. But when it took longer than five seconds, she got worried. "Damnit, I should've figured something like this would happen."

She was about to turn it off and skip the glitch the next time, but heard a beep. There was text on the screen. Reading it, it looked like it had to be a joke and a warning put in by the hacker who had made it.

"YOU HAVE ATTEMPTED TO DEFILE A SACRED AND BEAUTIFUL WORLD.

CHEATING IS UNFORGIVABLE. YOU WILL BE TAUGHT THAT

CHEATING COMES AT A TERRIBLE PRICE. INSTEAD OF LETTING

YOU INFLICT FURTHER TERRIBLE CONSEQUENCES UPON THOSE

AROUND YOU, YOU WILL SUFFER INSTEAD.

THERE IS NO CHANGING WHAT YOU HAVE DONE. NOW, YOUR

PUNISHMENT HAS ARRIVED. ONLY CRUELTY WILL TEACH YOU."

"What the fuck?" she laughed a little. "Time to turn it off—"

Everything was black. Her head was pounding all over. "God, what the hell happened?"

Realizing her eyes were closed she opened them to find the sun shining with a painful intensity, practically stabbing her eyes. "Owww…" She groaned. Blocking the sun from the window with her hand, she looked around her room. Except it wasn't her room. It didn't look like a hospital room either. Then where was she? Her heart was beginning to race as she looked wildly around the room for any sign of familiarity, any sign that this was some weird prank.

A woman's warm voice called from somewhere else in the house she was in, "Meri, breakfast is almost ready!"

**End Notes:** You may have noticed that I didn't use the main character's name. Yep, it's a mystery.

I'd like to thank Soupy for helping me with this. Grammar, plot holes, etc.

Please leave reviews of any sort. Favorite and follow, too! And feel free to ask any questions.


	2. Of Course It's Your Name

**Quick Notes: **I am very sorry this took so long. Things got in the way, but it shouldn't happen again. The next chapter should be up by the end of the week, and new chapters should be weekly. Ang a big thank you to Soupy for helping with this chapter!

**Chapter 2**

"Oh, fuck. This has to be some weird joke," Looking around, Meri took in her surroundings. In front of her was a wall with a small window, it also had a dresser and a bookshelf lined up next to each other. To her right was a carpet set on the wooden tile floor, while to her left was just a plain wall. Behind her there was, from right to left, a red clock, a TV on a stand, a Game Cube with a controller, a small painting, and a desk with a chair facing to the right. On the desk was a computer and an open book.

This looked so familiar, as though she'd seen it somewhere before, so many times. Then it clicked, _This looks just like the girl's room from Sapphire! But this can't actually be that room, right? Which means somebody moved me after I fell asleep to mess with me. It must have been Paige, since I haven't told anyone else I bought Sapphire.__When did I even go to sleep? I remember playing and then… _Thinking hard to remember what happened once she got home, she retraced her steps. Everything seemed normal, besides the slightly weird art on the front of the game. Playing it was fine until…until… _The glitch! Then that weird message came up… But that was just a hacker—_

"Meri, come on, you're going to be late to the Professor's lab if you sleep in!" The same woman's voice as before was much closer now, causing her to jump from her sitting position in the bed.

"What?" She looked over to where the voice came from to see a slender, somewhat older woman with medium-length brown hair standing at her door. "That's not my name…" she mumbled.

The woman looked a little concerned. "Well, of course it is, dear. You must have had some strange dreams!" She giggled a little. "Now hurry downstairs and eat so you can get your journey started on the right foot!" She gave one last smile before closing the door and walking away.

_She said that like she was my mom or something… _She sat there for a few minutes longer before making up her mind._ Okay, I'll play along with this until they're done with this joke. _ She was in pajamas, so she got out of the bed and peeled her clothes off, which gently swished against her skin, then left them where she dropped them.

The dresser contents looked pretty different from what she was used to. Whereas she preferred dark colors, especially blue, a lot of what was in here was light or various shades of red. Besides that much of the clothes were pretty revealing: short skirts and very low cut scoop necks were plentiful. There were a couple higher cut shirts that would do in the very bottom of her drawer. She settled on a tank top with thick white and light blue stripes and a big bow in the middle for her top. Dark blue skinny jeans would look good with it. Now she just needed to follow her nose to where breakfast was being made.

When she stepped into the kitchen, she saw that there was a full plate of pancakes with some blue syrup, a small unfamiliar-looking fruit, bacon, and a glass of milk. The lady who woke her up earlier was sitting there, reading a newspaper while drinking what looked to be a brown liquid from a light green mug.

"It's about time you got down here, dear; I was really starting to worry. Did you sleep okay?" Her voice was still radiating warmth like before.

There was a pause before she answered the question in a disinterested tone. "…uh, no, not really."

The woman's face was suddenly crestfallen, and her voice matched. "Aw, I'm sorry to hear that, dear." But the cheeriness was back just as quickly. "All the more reason to eat a good breakfast!"

The conversation was very one-sided. The lady kept on asking questions about this Pokémon journey that was supposedly going to happen. At first, her answers were short and forced, but soon, she was playing along with it all. "I went on a journey of my own, too. I know I've told you before, but even though your mom only got three badges, it was…"

She just let the lady, who had now referred to herself as "mom", go on about her younger days while she ate the food that had been presented to her, nodding and giving other simple responses at the appropriate times. The fruit, which looked sort of like a bright blue apple, tasted like and orange, oddly enough. _I've gotta admit it though, this lady is a really good actor! It's like she actually cares about the things I'm saying and believes what she's saying. A lot of planning must have gone into the script__… __Mmm, blueberry syrup._

"Uh oh, it's almost nine o' clock! You better get going to the lab or you won't get first choice out of the Pokémon the professor has this year!" The woman looked a little panicked while getting up from her chair. "I'm sorry, honey, I shouldn't been keeping you here with my stories when you have to go out and make your own now!"

Projecting an outwardly cynical attitude, 'Meri' could feel the knot in her stomach growing exponentially. "Meri", as her "mom" had been calling her, let herself be hurried off into the alien world by this frantic woman. "Right, I forgot! Thanks for breakfast!" Meri chimed with false sincerity.

Meri ran to what she assumed to be the front door and opened it, but before she could step out and get away from this woman, she called out, "Hey, don't forget your backpack," she giggled a little before finishing her thought, "It would be a shame if you left it here after spending so much time picking it out!" This caused the young girl to turn around and saw that her mom was pointing just a few feet to the right of her at a large red backpack with lots of large and small hidden pockets, pouches, and straps. It seemed to have a huge capacity that was beyond the eye's first judgment.

Picking it up, she found that while it was lighter than expected, there was a decent quantity of items inside already. With the bag on her shoulders and the straps pulled tight, she was off and running without a word, the door slamming shut behind her.

Not really paying attention to where she was going, Meri tried to look for anything familiar, but couldn't place anything. The houses were of completely different styles from where she lived. They all had flat roofs and somewhat rounded edges. She also noticed that the whole area was covered in grass. No city or town she had been to in the past had been like this. No cars were around either. All things that were oddly and coincidentally similar to home town of Sapphire's main character.

After a while of not seeing anything familiar, she stopped. "Okay, this isn't helping," she thought aloud, "Maybe the Professor's Lab is where I'll be told it's just a prank. But where is it? Crap, I'm going to have ask someone." It took a little bit more walking before she came across anyone. It happened to be a tall and fat guy wearing a bright blue shirt. He looked groggy and his hair was really messed up, but he was the only guy who was around. "Excuse me sir, would you happen to know where the Professor's Lab is?"

It was a few seconds before he started. "Uhhh, its, you know, uhhhh…" this was going nowhere. Then after several more seconds of what appeared to be him thinking very hard, he pointed, "That way! Yeah… Like, a mile that way. But didn't you already know that, kid?"

"Yeah, sure, thanks!" She said before leaving. _Damnit. _Besides that the guy had taken forever to give her an answer, he pointed the exact opposite direction that she had been going. At least it had given her a little time to catch her breath. She kept running in the direction he had pointed, passing the house she had woken up in along the way.

Doubt was starting to creep in when she came across a large building not too far ahead. It was two stories high and pretty wide. When she got to the front of the building a minute later, she came to a stop in front of a sign while putting her hands on her knees and panting. _Welcome to the Lab of Hoenn's Pokémon Professor, Professor Birch!_

_Well, I guess this must be it, then._ Gathering herself despite the exhaustion from running all the way there, she nervously walked over to the set of big glass doors and pulled open the one on the right and stepped inside.

It looked familiar, but not in the way that she had hoped it would. A computer and desk were set up on each side of the room. On the left were a few massive bookshelves with an uncountable amount of equally massive books. On the right side of the room was a circular machine with a bright red cover on top. Various boxes, some stacked or open, were also scattered around.

A couple men and a woman were running around, typing into the computers, observing the machine that would glow on top and make odd noises, and then writing things down with intense focus in their eyes._ Man, they're really trying to sell this lab thing, aren't they?_

"Hey, it looks like there is one more!" It wasn't until one of the young men came over that she realized they were referring to her. "Hold up for just a moment everyone." There were groans of annoyance around the laboratory, causing Meri to feel embarrassed for some reason. "Hey, I was told all of the new trainers had come through already. Sorry about that. I'll show you to the Professor, Miss."

The scientist had his dark blue hair combed to the sides and gelled down. His glasses were dirty and made his brown eyes appear muddy and kind of sad. They didn't talk after the initial greeting, and thankfully, the Professor wasn't far away since the door was just at the far end of the room, so things didn't have enough time to get awkward between them. "Right in here, Miss."

The man held the door open for her. She felt a little weird with all his formality. "Um, thanks," a moment later she awkwardly added, "sir." But the door was pretty much closed and he probably hadn't heard anyways.

"Ah, I was wondering where you were, Meri," she could see a man with brown hair with a brown beard and a rather large head was looking at her about ten feet away. He looked exactly like Professor Birch did. _I guess the costumes are really good, too? _"You were the last person I expected to be late!"

"Yeah, I had kind of an odd morning…" she grumbled.

Professor Birch just smiled, apparently trying to comfort her. "Well, just because you had a late start, doesn't mean you can't still be a great trainer, like my son, Brendan." There was clearly a ton of pride in both his eyes and his voice as he spoke; they were both glowing. "You might even be able to become a Champion one day like him. Perhaps Littleroot could have two Hoenn League Champions, two world-famous trainers! If you can beat him of course!" He was heartily laughing now. _Okay, you can cut the act now…_

"Well, anyways, I suppose I should give you your Pokémon now so that you can catch up with all the other seven kids who have already left," the Professor said before nervously scratching the back of his head. "But unfortunately, because you were the last to get here, I only have one Pokémon left. It's over there on the table."

His finger pointed to his left, her right, where there was a shiny ball sitting in a form-fitting impression. It was metal: red on top, white on bottom, and in the center, a small circular button. A Pokéball. A really realistic one…

"You know what to do," the man standing next to her urged, "Just press the button in the center and meet your new friend!"

_Mhmmm, right, let's see what really happens. _And then her jaw dropped open. There was a red line of light that turned into a small shape. And then right before her stood a Pokémon. Not one that she had seen before, but it obviously wasn't any animal she'd seen before. This was really a Pokémon. In her head now, red flags and blaring alarms were going off everywhere. It couldn't be denied anymore. _Nonononononononono, this can't be right!_

"Well, would you like to name your new Oshawott, Meri?" The Professor again looked at her with that encouraging look. So this was the real Professor Birch speaking to her. And she was in the real Littleroot Town. In the real Hoenn. Holding a real Pokéball, that had just spit out an actual Pokémon.

"Uh… Not yet…" Meri managed to get out after a few seconds of stammering. The creature, what had just been called an Oshawott, standing before her must have been a newer Pokémon.

It looked up to her, and with an adorable voice, mewed, "Oooshhh." It almost looked like it was smiling. It looked kind of strange though. It's nose was red, it had blue ears on the side of its head that almost looked like little tufts of hair. Where had she seen something like that before… Oh yeah, he looked like Krusty the Klown from The Simpsons! Except a little otter, standing in front of her, and she could touch it. If it wasn't for the total shock of things, she'd probably be laughing pretty hard right now.

"And don't forget! You also get a Pokédex and these five Pokéballs to get you started!" The Professor said, handing her the shrunk-down balls as well as the red device. It looked like it opened, but right now didn't feel like the time to check.

Thanks…Professor…" She just stared at the items in her hands in confusion and wonder.

He put his arm on Meri's back, surprising her, before guiding her towards the door. "Now, that you have the basic supplies, you're ready to go. I wish you the absolute best of luck, young trainer, on what is sure to be an amazing journey full of…"

Meri stopped paying attention mid-speech and was lost in the panicking deluge of her brain's thoughts. Everything was whirling so fast that she was unable to grasp on to any single thought before it was knocked out of the way by another. Without realizing it, she was outside the lab again, this time with Professor Birch's hand on her shoulder.

"…and remember to stay in touch with your mom so she doesn't worry, and fill out your Pokédex for me!" He chuckled at his last statement. "Well, that's all I have to say. Goodbye, Meri!"

The door was shut a moment later, leaving the confused girl standing there with her mouth still slightly ajar. "But, that's not my name…"

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	3. She Really DOES Love Fire Pokemon!

**Notes: **Hello, back again. This chapter to a lot longer to get out than I wanted, but it needed the editing and as a result, turned out much better! So a big thank you to my editor, Soupy, for that! And also a HUGE thank you to everyone who is following and favoriting! To the people who haven't yet, please do! It's really appreciated! And reviews would be awesome, since they help me improve as a writer. Now, enjoy the chapter.

**Chapter 3**

It was a while before Meri realized she, again, had no clue where she was going. After promptly being shown out of Professor Birch's Lab, she had stood there for a while in shock before walking away from the largest building in town. That being said, she could no longer see it, which must have meant she was fairly far away from it. Well, it looked like she'd be asking a stranger for directions again, as much as she would prefer not to after last time.

There were more people out in this part of town than the other parts. There were a few shops around here, as well as what looked like a small movie theatre which was the main attraction of this rather quiet town. The first person she talked to, a lady with bright red hair, pointed her to the town's exit, a short distance away; Meri had been going in the general direction of Route 101 this time, so she had a better grasp of where she was and where she needed to go.

It was another fifteen minutes before the trees and sign came into view: "Now leaving Littleroot Town and entering Route 101."

For a little while, the dirt path was mostly straight with just a few bends. On both sides were tall-standing trees; a mix of young and small, tall and old trees. Below them were a number of bushes, some with thorns and others that just had small leaves with not much else. The grass encroached upon the brush and trunks of trees, sometimes even engulfing small bushes under their tall and starchy stalks. The sheer amount of green around her was impressive when compared to the grey and concrete city she had lived in her entire life. Meri had not known such natural beauty until now.

After what must have been an hour or so of walking, Meri veered off of the path into the thick of the route. Taking care to watch for holes and pointy plants, she made her way through the brush. Soon, she came upon a tree stump that was the perfect height for taking a seat on. Not overly comfortable, with the microscopic fibers of the tree digging into her butt, even through her jeans. The tears almost instantly began streaming from her eyes when she sat down. How was this possible? How could she have been put into a game? What was happening in the real world now? All of her friends must be worried. Would she be stuck here forever, or was there a way out? The thoughts just kept sprinting and flailing through her head, leaving her with a migraine.

With her head pounding, but the tears and thoughts finally slowing themselves, Meri decided to let out the Pokémon she had just been given. She tossed the ball out in front of her into the small clearing surrounding her tree stump. When it hit the ground, the ball opened wide and unleashed a red light, quickly taking to the shape of what she had remembered before: a bipedal otter-creature. The little creature looked around for a moment before settling its dark brown eyes on its trainer. "Osh osh, wott, oshawott!" It seemed to be gleeful with its voice. Then it came up to her and gave her right leg a hug.

"What's up little buddy?" Meri asked it, looking down at the fluffy little thing.

It looked up at her with eyes that looked stressed, and its voice reflected it with the clear tone of worry. "Oshawott osh?" It asked her.

She laughed a little. It was like the Pokémon was worried about her, even though they just met. "I'm okay, it's nothing. I'm fine." She tried smiling, but it morphed into a tight grimace.

"Oshhh," the otter Pokémon cooed to its trainer as it pressed itself into her leg. Meri rubbed its head softly, surprised by how it felt. She had never felt otter fur before and found that it was extremely thick. So thick that it must have added close to two inches of extra height! It wasn't long before she was stroking down its neck and back. It was surprisingly soothing for her, relieving the remnants of her headache. The little guy was also enjoying it as well; he was pressing his head into her hand and making an almost purr-like noise. Wait, was he a boy or a girl? It wouldn't be nice to give it a girl name and end up discovering later that it was a boy.

"How do I check though?" She didn't want to have to do it the old-fashioned way, with her eyes or hands. It made her uncomfortable before she remembered about what she had been given. "Right! The Pokédex!"

It took a moment to pull it out of her tight jean pocket, finding that it was surprisingly compact and light. Meri flipped the cover and saw the small screen at the top come to life, lighting up and doing some sort of introduction with a screen showing the Devon Corp's logo for ten seconds or so before fading out to a title screen that said, "Welcome to your Pokédex, trainer! Please scan the QR code that is printed on your Pokémon trainer's license," the words were spoken by a clearly mechanical voice from small speakers on the sides.

_Trainer's License? I don't remember getting one of those. _Meri rummaged around in her pockets hoping she wouldn't have to go all the way back home or to the lab to get it. The worry was quickly dashed though as she realized there was a slot on the underside of the Pokédex's cover that the license could easily be slid in and out of. _That's a relief…_

Pulling the card out, Meri took a short moment to observe it. The picture looked exactly like her. Everything about her on there was correct: 5' 2", 95 lbs, blue eyes, brown hair. Everything except her name, which was now: Meri Tarragon. Her last name was a spice, apparently.

With that, she scanned her ID into the machine and after a few moments, it spoke again. "Thank you for registering your Pokédex, Meri Tarragon," it said her name in a slightly different, and more mechanical voice, with awkward pauses at the syllables of her name instead of the smooth flow of normal language. "Your trainer information has been installed and is now ready to be used. Would you like to learn about how to use the amazing features of the newest Pokédex?"

"No, I'll be fine without it, I think," she said aloud.

"Are you sure?" It quickly responded.

"Yep," Meri told the machine. It then went to the main menu screen where it had options listed in to columns: Pokédex, Trainer Information, Check Party, Check PC Boxes, Map, Battle History, and Settings. Now it was time to do what she was originally going to do when she pulled the machine out, so she pressed check Party. Inside there, there were six slots, one to the left and five to the right. The one on her left showed "Oshawott." So that's what it was called! Selecting Oshawott brought up an enlarged picture of the Pokémon. "So you are a boy!" She grinned, earning the same face from her companion. It was pretty similar to the Pokédex from the game except that it did not show how much health he had, his nature, and the contest information. His only moves right now were Tackle and Tailwhip, but according to the Pokédex, he was just two levels away from learning Water Gun, which would be a big help for the first Gym Leader, Roxanne. _If I'm here that long._

There had been a backpack that her new Mom had said she'd made the night before, but she had no clue what was in it. "Let's take a look in here, shall we?" Meri said this half to herself and half to Oshawott, who jumped and made a few happy noises. Going through the smaller pockets, she found some power bars, a canteen, and a sandwich, as far as food went. There was also a lighter, some pencils and pens, a pocketknife with several other attached tools, and a few other small things used for camping.

In the middle pocket, there were some books, as well as a change of clothes. One book was a guide to plants and berries. One half dedicated to poisonous things, the other to edible and safe ones. Meri took some time looking through it, but mostly just at the pictures and some of the names. The other book was flowery and blue on the outside. _Kind of pretty, actually, _she thought to herself. Inside was completely blank, except the first page. It read:

"_To my Dearest Journal:_

_Tomorrow can't come soon enough! I don't know how I'm going to sleep tonight. There's so much waiting for me. I hope I can get a fire-type from Professor Birch. I've heard they can be a lot of fun…You are the last thing I need to pack. Everything is ready to go, even a Girl's Best Friend is in my backpack! Mom would kill me if I left it here and she found it hahaha! Anyways, I'll be writing in here often to tell you about all the fun and adventures I'll being having around Hoenn._

_Love,_

_Meri_

_April 4__th__, 153"_

"Girl's Best Friend? What is that supposed to mean?" Meri spoke as she closed the book. Oshawott seemed just as confused as her. She then put everything back in that pouch before opening the biggest one in the back.

Inside, on the very top, was a big purple sleeping bag. Below that was a set of pink Delcatty pajama pants, a thin pink shirt to match, and some underwear. "These are so cute and soft!" she exclaimed as she rubbed the pants on her cheek. When she stopped, she stuck her hand back in. "That seems like all of it…wait, what's this?"

There was what felt like a flap towards the bottom of the pouch. Feeling around some more, she found a lump a few inches lower. Lifting up the flap, her fingers found a zipper to grasp onto. She slid it from left to right, and stuck her hand in, grabbing the shape. When it was out of the darkness inside the backpack, it became apparent that it was a rolled up map. "Why is there a map in here if the Pokédex already has one?" When she pulled the side to open it up however, something fell out onto the ground.

Meri moved the map to the side, to see her Oshawott picking up the object. It took her a moment to realize what it was, and when she did, she immediately snatched it from her Pokémon's hands and shoved it back into the backpack. Oshawott just looked up at her confused, to which she responded, "Don't worry about it little buddy, you don't need to know." She sighed to herself, _So that must have been what she meant by Girl's Best Friend…"_

What had fallen out of the map was such a surprise: it was a vibrator. It was covered in flame designs and was at least six inches long. This girl really DID have a thing for fire Pokémon. She'd be lying if she said she wasn't interested in feeling what a toy felt like, and she almost ordered one that one time with her friends when they were alone at her house and she suddenly realized her face was getting really hot- "Anyways, we should get moving, Oshawott!" she suddenly said while laughing awkwardly and standing up.

They'd been walking for several hours without running into many Pokémon. When they had, the wild Pokémon either ran off before they could battle, or had run off midway through the battle, earning barely any experience for Meri's young Pokémon.

Their luck turned around not much later, however. They had been sticking to the path since they left the tree stump, for the most part.

"Hey, you!" A voice called out from somewhere she couldn't see as she looked all around her. "Yes, you, Meri! To your right!" The voice was male and sounded annoyed. She turned her head in the suggested direction and saw a boy about the same age walking towards her through some bushes.

When he was out, the boy dusted the leaves and other stray plant bits off of his light-blue jeans that had obviously been "torn" for style. Above that was a white deep-v. He had dark sunglasses with neon-orange temples and somewhat unruly, short blonde hair. He looked like a serious douchebag. "Took you long enough get out here," he taunted. "I bet your little Oshawott is still level 5!"

"Uh, maybe…" _Goddamnit._ "What do you want? A battle?"

"Well, duh," he sneered. "Not that the outcome is a question. My Cyndaquil just needs a practice dummy, and I figured any Pokémon raised by you couldn't be far away from one.

The ego dripping from the guy's voice was already annoying. "Okay, it's time to put your skills where your mouth is. Let's take this guy down a peg, Oshawott!"

"Oshawott!" he grunted, stepping in front of his trainer and glaring in the direction of where his fellow combatant would soon be standing.

"Go Cyndaquil! You should have no problem against this loser," he grinned as he said it, then he pointed at Oshawott as soon as his Pokémon had taken form a few feet in front of him. "Use Smokescreen!"

"Cyyyyn!" The little blue and yellow fire mouse began to pour smoke out of its mouth for a second before it sputtered and started to cough and choke on its own fumes.

There was a moment of surprised silence all-around, excluding Cyndaquil, before Meri regained her composure and issued her first command in a trainer-on-trainer Pokémon battle, "Oshawott, use Tackle!"

Her little otter charged the other Pokémon before it could react, knocking it onto its back and causing it to cough even more. "Use Tail Whip and then follow it up with another Tackle!" After a slap to the Cyndaquil's face, Oshawott again ran into his opponent.

Cyndaquil was knocked back a few more feet. It stopped coughing and tried to get up, but just fell over with a pathetic moan, "Cyyyn…", then was return to his Pokéball by its red laser.

There was a buzzing and high-pitched beeping in Meri's pocket, the one where she had stuck the Pokédex, so she pulled it out and opened it up. "Congratulations on winning a battle! A small amount of Pokédollars has been added to your account!" It read on the screen, but the exclamation points didn't come through in its speech.

Looking up from her device and at her challenger, Meri saw a glare stuck on his face as he looked up from his own Pokédex. She was guessing that he had gotten message too, but it had said something about losing and now having less money. It was her turn to grin now, and his to frown. "I'm all out of potions. I didn't expect to have any trouble. Mind if I tag along to Oldale?"

Meri sighed. First he was being a dick, now he wanted her help. "Sure, whatever."

They walked for a half-hour or so in silence before anyone spoke. "You got lucky this time. I just pushed Cyndaquil too hard today. He was worn out by the time we battled. If he was fresh, we'd have beaten you so bad you would have run back home to your mommy like a little girl."

"You know, I could just leave you here, defenseless," Meri said, annoyed. "If you really think you're so good, battle me again tomorrow."

He snorted. "I have better things to be doing that wasting my time in a little town like Oldale and fighting a girl that had a little luck in her first battle."

Meri rolled her eyes. _This could be a long walk…_ She took out her Pokédex to see if she could find out how far they were away from their destination, and her relief from this guy. "9.7 miles away," the screen read after clicking on the star that designated Oldale Town. "Approximately 5.5 hours away with a 7 PM arrival at current pace." _Yep._

The rest of the walk is mostly trading jabs and silence. By a couple hours into the walk, however, Meri just stopped paying attention to what he was saying. Meri took out her Pokédex in attempt to focus on something else for a while. She decided to check out the Battle history. On the screen was a picture of her and the other guy. Under his picture, "Colin Jackson IV" was written. _So that's his name. _Below them it had their records as trainers, where the battle occurred, its length and offered expanded statistics that she decided to check out later. It had been Colin's first trainer battle as well. The Pokémon used were also shown, with Cyndaquil having an red X by it and Oshawott having a blue circle by it. At the bottom, there was a key. "Circle = Pokémon won a match, X = Pokémon lost a Match, - = Pokémon fainted at the same time as its opponent." There was a section at the very bottom for Battle Notes. It said that Oshawott had reached level 6! _Yes! _It was a good feeling, even though it was just level 6 and she had found out several hours after it had happened.

Eventually, as the sun was coming down, Colin's voice came back to the fore of her senses. Hearing about his rich parents and how many times he's gotten a girl naked got annoying really quickly. He eventually started sweet-talk her into becoming the next slut to give into his "charm", as he called it. Last she checked, being a douche wasn't charming.

"Seriously, it's not going to happen in a million years, asshole," Meri growled at him.

Colin laughed conceitedly, "Yeah, I've heard that one before. Small tits are totally my type, just so you know."

Meri went totally red in the face. "I don't—you—they're—I-!" she stammered through her embarrassment. Was that supposed to be his attempt at being smooth?! The town now came into sight. "Oh, thank God!" Meri threw her hands into the air. "We're finally here!" And she'd finally be away from Colin!

"When you get to the Pokémon center, just ask the front desk where my room is." He started walking ahead of her. "I'll be waiting." The "come hither" dripped and oozed through the air and into Meri's ears. It made her feel gross.

Meri stopped in her tracks, turning her hands into fists at her sides, ready to punch the back of this guy's head. She was not that sort of girl!


	4. It Wouldn't be Pokemon Without a Rival

**Quick Notes: **Hello. Here's the newest chapter. Thank you everyone for following and favoriting! And WHOO, I got my first review! Thank you! If you haven't already reviewed, followed, or favorited, why not do it right now? It's just a couple mouse clicks. Now, enjoy the chapter!

**Chapter 4**

When she woke up in the morning, Meri was informed by the Nurse Joy that her "friend", Colin, had left, looking upset, which prompted Joy to ask what was wrong with the boy.

While she had spent the night at the Pokémon center, the same as Colin, she never went to the creep's room. Even if she had, it no doubt would have been awful. Not just because the guy was a total jerk, but the rooms were also cramped for single trainers and the beds were more like cots than beds. Apparently the bigger towns had much better rooms that had their own showers in them. The showers here were stalls that you got ten minutes in with mostly cold water. Hopefully it was true and she could take a long, hot shower, where she could really take the time to clean every part of her body.

"I don't know," Meri thought for a second, before laughing. "He gets a little upset when he doesn't get everything he wants. He's fine." _I hope he stayed up all night waiting. _While still annoyed about his repeated, and failed, advances from yesterday, the ass-kicking she gave him earlier the day before totally made up for it.

Breakfast was provided by the Pokémon center, just as dinner had been last night. None of it was fancy or flavorful, but it was filling. Several trainers of various ages, although most of them close to her age, took advantage of it. Oran juice, a bagel, and some HypnO's cereal with milk were what she had for her morning meal. Some muffins were also stuffed into her backpack for later.

The next stop was the Pokémart, which was next door to the Pokémon center. Meri was the only one in there when she walked in besides the clerk. "Hello, young girl, how may I help you today?" He had an inviting smile. He must have had a good couple of days of business with new trainers coming through.

"No, I'm just looking right now," she said to him, smiling back.

"Alright. I'll be right here if you need anything," he smiled again. The man was in his early 30's. He kept himself tidy: well-combed and thick black hair, great posture, and looked rather fit.

The Pokémart itself was about the same size as a gas station store. Except it had more travel items and items specifically for Pokémon trainers. There was lots of food in bright packaging in brands and names she had never heard of, but not much fresh stuff. Besides, if the Pokémon centers always gave out free food, she wouldn't need to stop here often, unless she was really craving some junk food.

Meri couldn't help a weird feeling she was getting. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary until she looked around. Behind her, it looked like the clerk was looking at her. After pretending to look at some Pika Party Zappers! candy, she turned around to look at the only other person in the shop. When her head turned, she could have sworn his turned away from her. Now she went to the back, where there wwas a variety of drinks, desserts, and frozen meals behind glass doors. In the reflection, her fears were confirmed: the owner was staring at her ass, not that it was that big. _God, is every guy a pervert here?! _Now he was licking his lips. Needless to say, she made her way to the exit.

The creepy shop owner started to look busy behind the counter when she turned around. When he realized his eye candy was about to leave his store, he tried to stall her. "Was there something you were looking for? It might be in the back!" he grinned anxiously.

"No, I suddenly realized I already had everything I needed. I need to get going now," Meri said nervously.

"Is price the problem? I can get you a good deal…or negotiate," He urged his young customer to reconsider.

The look in the man's eye when he said the last part made it disturbingly obvious that he had some sort of dirty fantasy in mind. "Nope, bye!" Meri hurried her way to the door without paying attention to anything else he had to say.

"At least take a free potion…" he trailed off, but was already gone, out the door. Sighing to himself, he spoke aloud, "Oh Jeremy, where did you go wrong this time? Why do they always run?"

Meri spent the rest of her day on Route 103, trying to forget the morning's events. She only got about 10 miles into the route before she had to turn back. There was a large area blocked off for construction of a bridge being built from Route 103 to Route 110. This couldn't be that big of a route. She was almost to the end of it, but still had time to get back to Oldale around sundown according to the Pokédex.

On the way to the construction zone, Meri ran into two trainers. One was an elderly man battling with a recently caught Zigzagoon, and the other was a boy at least five years younger than her who was camping with his parents. He had a Pidgey. Both of them were pretty easy to take on. While the older man didn't seem to care how the battle turned out and was gracious about his defeat, the young boy cried afterwards, accusing her of cheating. There were also plenty of wild Pokémon to fight on this route, but she didn't catch any since they didn't hold any interest for her. The Pokémon from the beginning of the game never did since they were usually pretty weak.

From those battles, Oshawott reached level 8, learning Water Gun along the way. While walking back, the two companions met their second Littleroot native. She had what the Pokédex identified as a Snivy. It looked like a smug little bastard. _Kinda cute too, but not as cute as Treecko._

The girl came up behind Meri and tapped her on the shoulder. "Hey Meri, how's it going?" it caused her to jump in surprise, and made the girl behind her giggle. "It's just me, Teresa."

"Oh, uh, hey, Teresa," _I have no idea who you are, _Meri kept the thought to her head. "I'm not bad. So, what are you doing out here?"

Teresa ha long, bright pink pig-tails that almost went to her waist. Her eyes were almost the same color as her hair for some weird reason. While about the same height as Meri, she was not as thin. She was wearing a thin white blouse that allowed anyone to see her dark blue bra underneath, and tight black short-shorts. "Training, duh, what else? That's the kind of question I'd expect from Serenity," Teresa had a jovial tone, then suddenly got serious. "I'll get straight to the point, you are one of only two people from Littleroot I haven't battled yet. So far I'm undefeated. 10 and O, counting a few other trainers I've met. I'll admit I was surprised when I didn't see you waiting at the lab for the first choice of whatever fire Pokémon you wanted, but you're still my biggest rival, and I expect a good battle. Don't disappoint me!" She smiled before taking a few steps back. "Throw out your partner, whoever your starter may be!"

There was no time for Meri to really say anything to her apparent rival. "Alright, go, Oshawott!" she threw the ball out just a couple feet in front of her, the light materializing into Oshawott just a moment later. "Hey buddy, we've got ourselves a serious match this time." She looked down at him. "You ready to go?"

The little otter had a determined and surprisingly fierce look in its eye when it turned to face her. "Osh," it firmly grunted while nodding to her, before turning its head to its soon-to-be opponent. He would be at a type advantage, but didn't seem to care.

There was a few moments of staring between the two trainers and their two Pokémon, the air thick with tension before the first move was made. "Snivy, use Vine Whip!"

"Dodge it, Oshawott, then spray it with Water gun!" Meri yelled. Her Pokémon just barely dodged in time. While Water Gun wouldn't be very effective, it might be enough of a distraction to get Oshawott in close to use Tackle. That was the hope at least.

"Duck, then Leer, Snivy!" Teresa ordered her Pokémon, who was able to perfectly time it's moves, just barely getting its head under the spray of water, and before another command could be called out for its opponent, it was glaring fiercely. "You've got this won, Snivy! Finish with Vine Whip!"

Oshawott looked almost frozen in place by the Leer. This move was much more impactful here than in the games. "Oshawott, get out of the way!" Meri's Pokémon took a second to snap out of its daze, but it was a second too long, and he ended up on the receiving end of a Vine Whips to the face. He was knocked back and onto the ground. He was out of it and clearly unable to get up. She sighed in disappointment. "You did good, little guy…" she said softly, before returning him to his Pokéball. There was a buzzing and beeping from her pocket. She knew what it would say, so instead she turned her focus to the victor of the battle.

Teresa was grinning. "Not bad. I had the type advantage, so I can't be too disappointed with this," she checked her Pokédex. "Looks like I had a couple levels on you, too. You've got some catching up to do, or else I'll be finding a new rival."

_My first loss…damnit. _"It was just one battle, so don't get cocky."

"If that's the case, heal your Oshawott, and we can fight again right now," said Teresa, her seriousness was reflected in both her eyes and her voice.

Meri looked down, slightly ashamed. "I don't have any potions."

Then Teresa suddenly looked knowing and empathetic. "Was the guy at the Pokémart—"

"Yep! Eye-groped my ass!" Meri was red in the face. "So, uh who got Treecko?" she asked, trying to change the subject away from her uncomfortable morning experience.

"I figured you would ask about Torchic or another fire-type," the surprise was evident in her voice. "But Treecko ended up with Jackson. He was an easy win. Anyways, what are your plans after today?" Teresa asked.

Meri thought for a moment. "I guess I'll just follow the standard route to get all of the gym badges."

"Great, that means you'll keep getting stronger and might keep up with me. Good luck, Meri," she started walking fast and then turned around and kept walking while waving. "I look forward to the next time we meet in battle, rival!" And then she faced the other way and was soon out of sight.

"She's a strange one… But I guess this wouldn't be Pokémon without a rival." Meri laughed a little, feeling a few twinges of worry about being stuck in this world but pushed them aside so that she could get Oshawott to the Oldale Pokémon center quickly.

There was no trouble on the way back from Route 103. The Nurse Joy was still friendly as ever. Unless it was a different one. It's not like she would be working 24/7, that would be inhuman and creepy. But still not as creepy as the shop owner next door.

When she got back, she was really hungry. A muffin and a power bar wasn't enough for as much walking as she had done. There were a couple soups to choose from, some rolls with butter packs set nearby, milk, and a few other things laid out on the table where breakfast had been served earlier in the day. She decided to go with a thin vegetable soup, milk, and then several rolls, most of which would be saved for later.

There were five other trainers in the lobby eating, since eating in rooms was not allowed. Three were in a group together, and so were the other two. One in the group of three, a boy, asked if she wanted to join them at their already cramped table, but she declined the invitation. She would prefer to be alone, at least until Oshawott was back.

A few of the other trainers had their Pokémon out. Meri recognized three of them: sitting by the group of two were an Oddish and a Ledyba that seemed to be having their own enthusiastic conversation apart from their trainers. In the group of five there were two Pokémon out, but it looked like each had at least two or three more, and had been travelling for some time. One was a Nidoqueen, which surprised her with short it was. They looked liked they would be really big, but It had to be close to a foot shorter than her. The other Pokémon by the larger group was unfamiliar to her. It looked like a cross between a shark and a dragon that stood on two legs; a tail with a fin, arms that had fins, and spikes on its arms and legs. While mostly blue, it had some red on its front torso and a golden cross folded onto the front of its head, which had to cylinder protrusions coming out the sides. It was a terrifying sight, as it was at least a foot taller than her, especially when its blood red eyes looked at her.

This would be a good time to check her Pokédex to see what it was instead of burning in its malicious gaze. Pressing the scan button on the side, it beeped, then went to the Pokémon's dedicated page and speaking. "Garchomp: The Mach Pokémon. It is said that when one runs at high speed, its wings create blades of wind that can fell nearby trees." It was ground and dragon types. Going through the moves it learned and more into its information only made seem like more of a horrifying force.

"Excuse me, miss, I have your treated Pokémon for you," came a cheery voice to the right of Meri. It was the Nurse Joy, naturally.

Meri turned her head to see the indented tray with just a single Pokéball on it. "Thank you," she said as she grabbed the ball and the nurse pleasantly smiled at her before walking away. She finished her dinner and then headed to her tiny room to retire for the night. Her dreams were full of strange things and nightmares that awoke her a few times, covered in sweat. She had to sleep in just her underwear so that she could get cool and comfortable enough to get back to sleep. Yet when she woke up for the fourth time at 4 and couldn't get back to sleep by 5, she decided she might as well get up.

At least there probably wouldn't be too many people that wanted to take a shower this early, so she could wash all the gross off of her. The warm water, while short-lived, relieved some of the stress of her dreams before it turned to cold water and flushed away any sort of remaining drowsiness. A quick breakfast that included grabbing a few more muffins and she was off to Route 102.

The first few hours were largely uneventful. She ran into the occasional Pokémon she didn't recognize, or wasn't in this region or on this route in Sapphire, but none of them were worth catching except the single Ralts she had seen, but it Teleported away practically before she had been able to launch an attack on it. If she wanted one, she'd have to just throw the Pokéball right away, if she ever saw a wild one again.

There weren't any trainers around so far, much to Meri's disappointment. After losing yesterday, she needed a confidence booster. Her legs were starting to get sort of tired, so she decided to take a little break by a large pond. She had a few snacks and drank some water while she sat, trying not to think about the thoughts that had been trying to weigh her down since she got to Hoenn.

According to the Pokédex, it was still only 8:49 in the morning, so she was probably pretty far ahead of most of the trainers that had stayed the night in Oldale.

This route had been far more open than Route 101. There were large fields and clearings here, some with short grass, and others with the tall grass she'd first encountered only in the forests of Route 101. Off in the distance were large trees that seemed to go on for many miles. _There might be more Pokémon in there than out here, _she took a mental note to go there later.

There were berry bushes on the other side of the pond. Berries could be really helpful for her Pokémon in battle or could be good, so she decided to go check them out. It was a quick walk around the edge of the water to get there. These berries were more like full-on fruits than what they were called here. It was around twice the length from the bottom of her palm to the tips of her fingers.

The berry was mostly pink, but had some light green zig-zags going all the way around its spherical shape. Its texture was somewhere between firm and squishy. _Is it safe though? _She couldn't just sit down and start eating it where she was sitting. Then Meri remembered there was a book in her backpack about this sort of thing, so she pulled it out and onto her lap. After a couple minutes of checking and then double-checking in the Poisonous section, it was a pretty sure thing that it was safe, but it was still worth checking the Safe section. It was all the way in the back.

The Watmel Berry, a very juicy and very sweet fruit, was pretty common in Hoenn, except in the Northwestern part. It seemed like it would be delicious so she went ahead and took a bite into it after setting her book to the side. It was a little different than she expected, but still as advertised, and somehow familiar. Then it hit her. _It's a watermelon! Well, that should have beem obvious; watermelon, watmel, same thing… _This was a lot better than most of the watermelon she had ever had, partly because it didn't have a hard exterior she needed to get the fruit out of, partly because there weren't any seeds so far, and it was just so incredibly flavorful. Its cool juices ran down her chin, then into her lap and on the ground.

And then her stomach was in pain. Horrible pain, worse than any cramps she'd ever experienced, it was like a sledgehammer had been swung full-force into her midsection. Meri keeled over, closing her eyes and covering her stomach with both arms. Barely a moment later, her hands and feet began to feel searing pain that slowly moved up her limbs. "Oh God, what's happening?" she moaned in her pain.

The pain just kept coming as it engulfed her whole body in its flames. She tried opening her eyes through the pain to see if she was being attacked or something. To her absolute terror, what looked like red and grey fur was growing out of her skin, and she found that trying to brush it off only made the pain stronger. Soon her bones, muscles, and every single part of her body were in horrific pain and she was getting closer to the ground, she couldn't even keep her eyes open any longer.

Meri was screaming now, louder than she had in her whole life. "Someone help me! Someone, please!" Her body was changing shape: it was getting much smaller, except for her ears, nails, and teeth, which she could feel stretching longer. There was also a pain like a knife trying to escape her body from just above her ass. Meri felt to feel something growing back there. There was nothing she could do but pass out from the agony.

Everything was so weird when she woke up. It took a moment to gather herself after Meri remembered what had happened. It was terrifying and hurt so much, but it was gone now, it seemed. She wasn't in any pain, but everything felt unfamiliar for some reason. Wobbling, she picked herself up off of the ground to find that she was standing on four legs instead of two, and was very close to the ground. _Why am I standing like this? _

Looking down, there were red paws just in front of her. _Paws? That can't be right… _She groggily stumbled over to the pond just a few feet away. She looked down into the water to see a little dark grey and red fox-like creature staring back at her. This couldn't be right, but she knew; it was obvious: she was staring back at herself.


	5. Have You Hit Your Head?

**Notes: **I'm not going to go into why this took so long, just know that I'm sorry it did. Hopefully you enjoy it, since it only received a partial edit, although that's more than the last one got. Thank you for reading everyone! Please review and favorite and all that!

**Chapter 5**

"Why does this shit keep happening to me?" Meri wailed as she ran for her life.

Barely a moment after realizing that she was now a Pokémon, and having almost no time to process it, a very young girl started chasing her, shouting "What a cute Pokémon!" and laughing as she chased Meri around. In her new form, Meri struggled and stumbled in her best attempt at running. Despite being physically more capable of bursting speed in this new body, she could not easily outrun the little girl.

Meri was starting to get tired, so she jumped into some bushes after managing to make a sharp turn that confused the girl just long enough for her to get hidden. If she didn't she would probably get caught, since she was getting really tired. The panic Meri felt from the threat of being caught and becoming a pet was overwhelming. The little child towered over Meri, and she didn't know if she was frightened or bewildered at her new perspective.

"Where did the Pokémon go?" the girl looked around confusion.

"There you are Sarah!" a stern voice came as an adult man, who cast a long shadow over Meri and her pursuer, walked over to the child. "We were worried sick. Let's get back on the path, where it's safe. Always hold mine or your mom's hand."

The smaller one was carried off by her dad while she complained about wanting to "pet the cute Pokémon."

Meri waited until they were out of sight before popping her head out of the bushes. She looked around to make sure no one and nothing else threatening was around before she stepped all the way out. The surrounding area was clear, but she had no idea where she was, or at least didn't recognize the area. The best thing she could probably do was retrace her steps to figure out where she came from.

There were a couple minutes of walking before she realized something, _Aw crap, all of my stuff is there without anyone to watch it. What if Oshawott gets stolen?! _With that, Meri dashed back to where her ordeal had taken place. Thankfully, it only took a minute or two to get there and when she did, it appeared as though nothing had been disturbed or taken, or almost nothing. The fruit that had put her in so much pain had disappeared, probably taken by some hungry Pokémon.

"But what do I do now?" she thought aloud. What does one do when they turn into a Pokémon? This hadn't been part of the games, except for the Mystery Dungeons, but she couldn't remember if they ever became human again or if it said how they became a Pokémon in the first place.

Maybe eating the fruit again would change her back! She had put one in her backpack just before eating the first one, but it was zipped up, and that presented a problem. Her paws couldn't grab like hands or fingers, so she tried her new, sharp teeth, but found that it was too awkward of an angle to move the zipper, even when she managed to get a good grip on it. Looking around for a better solution, she saw Oshawott's Pokéball on one of her jeans' belt loops.

Meri went over to it and poked the button in the middle to enlarge it, then a second time to open it. With the usual burst of red light, it snapped open, nearly clipping her nose.

When Oshawott came out he immediately spoke, "Hi, Meri!" his voice was full of its natural cheer. Except now she could understand it, and he sounded like a pre-pubescent boy. But now that she was a Pokémon, it shouldn't be as weird as it was that she could understand what he was saying, but it was still kind of cool. Then he noticed her, "Who are you? And where's my trainer?"

This would be hard to explain. "I know this will be hard to believe, but I am your trainer. It's me, Meri," she could hear the doubt in her voice and knew it wouldn't help her case.

Oshawott tilted his head. "But you don't look like her or sound like her," he paused, leaning into sniff her, making a little uncomfortable. "You don't even smell like her. "

"Please, Oshawott, I really need your help," Meri pleaded to her disbelieving partner. "I got turned into this Pokémon by eating a berry. I don't know why or how, but you're the only one who can help me now."

"Hmmm…" Oshawott stood there to ponder the situation before relenting. "I'll help since you seem like you're honestly in trouble. But I can't go far, just in case my trainer comes back."

"Thank you, Oshawott!" she tried to hug him, but found it didn't work that well with her forelegs, so she backed off in some embarrassment. "You don't need to go anywhere. I just need you to open my backpack, the top pouch, and get out the berry that's inside. I can't open the zipper."

Oshawott went took a couple steps over to the bag and put his paw on the correct zipper before asking, "Is this the right one?"

"Yeah!" Meri smiled, and found that she was baring her teeth and that it felt really weird to do it as a Pokémon, and probably looked kind of scary, so she toned it down a bit and hid her teeth back under her lips.

With that, the otter Pokémon took hold of the zipper in his almost hand-like paw, and pulled up, opening the red bag, which he was the same height as. After a second of digging around and some struggling, he, along with the berry, fell onto the ground. "So you think this will help you?"

"Yep. It's what turned me into a Pokémon in the first place, so it should also turn me back into a human, right?" Meri answered her Pokémon, who looked extremely doubtful, but she didn't blame him. "Here we go!" she walked over to the fruit and took a bite out of it. It was even sweeter than it was as a human, to the point where it hurt her teeth, but she swallowed the whole mouthful after chewing a some. It was harder to chew with just a bunch of sharp teeth than she expected.

Meri braced for the pain to make its return and engulf her, closing her eyes, bunching her muscles, and waiting. But nothing happened. There was a few seconds of painful silence. "Are you sure you haven't hit your head or something?" Oshawott asked of the failed attempt.

"Yeah, I'm sure, I don't know why it didn't work. I swear that this berry changed me," Meri said, desperately trying to convince her Pokémon of what had happened to her. The panic was returning to her mind and her eyes were wide. "I'm not crazy; I just need to figure out how to become a human again." They both sat there for some time, thinking, Oshawott studying her, when she thought of something. "Maybe I need to eat a different berry!"

"That's not a bad idea," by his tone, Meri could tell Oshawott was just humoring her and still didn't believe her.

Meri was off and running barely a second later, but stopped and turned around for a moment to call back to her partner, "Stay there and watch over my stuff! I'll be back whenever I find a new berry!" Oshawott waved to her with a small smile that signaled for her to get going. There were still mostly open fields around here, so she turned towards the dense clumps of trees that bordered the northern part of the route. It took ten minutes or so of running, but she got there, and with less stumbling than she had when running away from the little girl earlier. Even so, this new body would take some getting used to if she was to be stuck in it for a long time.

When Meri got to the edge of the thick forest, she pushed her way through the bushes and ran right into a tree. "Ow…" she took a few steps back with her eyes closed before shaking the pain away. Opening her eyes and looking up, there were massive trees from all sides, except behind her. They towered over her; it was rather intimidating. With her just sitting there in her marvel of the massive timber, she noticed for the first time all of the scents in the air that rushed through her nostrils.

Wood was the main smell that came in, but she could also smell the earth beneath her, the leaves all around her, and even the moisture in the air. Every now and then, a varying faint scent would pass by her, depending on how she held her head. Pointing it to her left, she smelled something vaguely sweet and decided to start her search there. As she jogged, Meri kept gazing all around this beautiful place; it was captivating. _But that's not why I'm here. _With that, she sped up. The scent of fruit and flowers became stronger, letting her know she would soon arrive.

The berries there were cream-colored with some splashes of light yellow. They had a really odd shape, like a top: wide close to the bottom, but ultimately came to a point, and a little ball at the top, like a grip. The best thing to do would be to bite it off at the vine that connected to the little ball on top, where she wouldn't bite into the actual fruit, and potentially be poisoned if it was that type of berry. _Let's hope this one is it! _Meri thought to herself, not really able to speak aloud with the fruit between her teeth.

Although it wasn't nearly the same size or weight as the Watmel berry, it was still awkward holding it in her teeth. It was also much slower going back as well, since she might bite through the vine if she went too fast.

Oshawott was sitting with his back against the backpack when Meri returned. She set the fruit down gently when she was near the other Pokémon. "I need you to get something else for me," she said nervously, unsure if Oshawott would be willing to do more for her when she still had nothing to show she was telling the truth.

"What do you need?" he smiled, trying to ease her worry.

Meri breathed a sigh of relief before going on, "There is a book in there, in the pouch in front of the big one. It say which berries are safe and which ones are poisonous." Oshawott dived back in to the bag. He tossed some stuff out along the way, but soon had the book she had hoped for. "That's it!"

"It's actually here…" the otter Pokémon seemed genuinely surprised. He set it on the ground in front of them. "Where do I go?"

"Just start turning it page-by-page," she instructed him. She was excited, the solution to her problems could potentially be found in here. But as soon as they turned to the first berry, she realized that she couldn't read what was at the top of each page where the name was written, or anything else for that matter. Fortunately, she could remember which half of the book was which, and the book had full-color pictures of everything. Still, it bothered her to know that she could no longer do something that came with such ease before.

They got through the poisonous section of the book without finding her retrieval. Thirty or so pages into the safe side of the book, they found what they were looking for, which meant it was time to eat up, and maybe return things to normal, or at least get back to they way things had been the last few days. Meri went over to the berry and sniffed it. There was a spiciness was wafting out of it she hadn't observed until this second check, but there was also the fruity sweetness mixed in that she had first noticed when tracking it down. "This better work…" she mumbled.

It tasted more like the spiciness when she first bit in, the burning sensation almost overwhelming until relief came when some of its sweetness flowed in to soothe her taste buds. It was actually pretty good tasting all-in-all. But that wasn't why she was eating it. Again, she braced herself for impact like she had when eating the Watmel berry for the second. But again, nothing happened after several seconds. "God damnit!" Meri growled, extremely frustrated.

Then it was Oshawott's turn to surprise her. "Maybe you should go find some other berries and see if they work," he was encouraging her now, maybe he was starting to believe that she really was his trainer! Or at least knows her. Either way, he was more willing help.

"Right. I'll be back soon with another one to try," she dashed off again in the direction of the forest, but a little way from where she had gone last time. There were a couple different kinds of berry bushes right next to each other in this area. The first one she took back turned out to be dangerous, so it was tossed aside. The other, while okay to eat, didn't have the desired effect, which meant there was more searching and gathering to do.

By the time it had reached nightfall, she had gone and retrieved 19 more berries to try out, all failures to her cause. Oshawott was even kind of enough to offer to go out instead several times, since Meri was clearly getting worn out, but she only let him do it once, but that effort also didn't accomplish the mission. The sun had set at least an hour ago, but strangely, she felt as though she were gaining energy now, if only a little

While most of the berries were safe, only four of them were poisonous, it was frustrating and disappointing. Meri was starting to get extremely worried while Oshawott was losing faith in her again.

Meri sighed in defeat, "One more time. If it doesn't work, then I'll have to admit I…" she swallowed anxiously, terrified of the implications. _I'm sure it will work this time. No doubt. _She thought to herself despite the little voice in her head telling her to give up. _I'll think of some way to change back if this doesn't work. I may have to do it without Oshawott though… No, I can't go there. NO DOUBT!_

This time, she turned towards Oldale Town instead of venturing further out into the route. It wasn't long before something hit her nose. It had the now familiar fruity and sweet trail, and as she got closer, picked up slight hints of sourness. Another helpful thing she recently discovered was that it could see very well at night; almost as well as the daytime.

There were four berries of the same kind on the only bush in the area. It was odd that there wasn't much else besides grass around it. _I'm sure it's just a coincidence. _There was no way she wanted to think about the possibility of her last hope being something that could kill her.

"So, that's the one?" Oshawott called out to her when Meri got back. He was trying to sound upbeat again, to try and keep her cheer up.

"Yep, I'm sure of it! Now let's get that book open!" she said after the fruit had been set down. It wasn't in the section she had worried it would. Soon its distinct yellow shape was matched in the hoped for section. It actually looked a lot like a lemon, both in shape and color, but with slightly longer nodules coming out the sides. The smell was the same too, but stronger with the canine nose she was currently forced to wear.

The moment of truth was now here. Without any hesitation, she bit into the berry. It was so sour! Meri's eyes watered, or at least felt like they would, but it appeared that this body did not allow for it. Her tongues was burning more from this berry than any other the rest of the day, but she forced it down in the hope of returning to her human form.

There were a few tense seconds where nothing happened, and the two Pokémon seemed to be thinking the same thing when Meri's muscles stiffened and she could barely move. The pain began to seep back in, and so did some of her fur back into her body where there were natural hair follicles, she noticed, the rest just falling out. It was a quick climb though, and the burning on her entire body was soon back. Her bones and muscles began to get horrendous growing pains, and she could see her growing and changing again before she was forced to shut her eyes again. All the things that had grown were shrinking back into her body, mostly notably her tail, which felt like an Olympian lifter was pulling as hard as they could on it.

Meri had fallen on her side at some point during her transformation and was now curled in the fetal position. Not that she wanted to move with the pain still fading away, her muscles felt stuck in place while she shivered on the ground. As the newly-returned human girl slowly came back from the pain, she realized her Pokémon was hugging her neck and cooing while rubbing her shoulder. He was clearly very worried, and it made her smile some. "Thanks little buddy," she barely squeezed out of her tight, dry throat. He hugged a little harder and kept saying things in his again unfamiliar Pokémon language.

After a few minutes, the pain was gone and the stiffness somewhat relieved. Meri took the opportunity to stand up and stretch. This body was more familiar, so it was easy to move it around and get re-used to it.

_Let's make sure everything is right with me,_ she thought as she walked over to the pond. Everything looked a-okay to her: long claws, no ears, no tail, and no fur was on her entire…naked…body…out in the middle of Route 103. Anybody passing by would see her in all her glory. She couldn't help but scream.


	6. How About I Show You

**Notes: **Hello again, here is the next chapter! Thank you to everyone who has followed and favorited so far! Thank you to Soupy for editing. Here we go!

**Chapter 6**

Meri had forgotten about needing clothing when she transformed back to a human. It was rather embarrassing to be naked out in the open. She felt something warm thick fur hugging the lower part of her leg. Oshawott was there, looking up at her, rubbing her smooth leg with his paw. "Oshawott?"

"I'm fine little buddy, it's just that I'm naked," Meri responded to what she had guessed her Pokémon was asking. He looked perplexed; he did not understand the Human custom of wearing clothing. "Don't worry about it, I'm fine now." She patted his head softly.

When Meri looked down, she saw her reflection on the pond in the moonlight. There were no artificial lights here to hide the beauty of the celestial beings. This was the first time she was really taking a look at her body in this world. There hadn't really been a reason to, since she was pretty sure she looked the exact same, but for some reason she felt alien. The water mirror confirmed her estimation of her appearance. She didn't have a lot of shape to her, with how skinny she was. Thin legs that moved up to slight hips, where in between rested her mostly smooth pussy. So far, not much hair had grown. Her outer labia were normal, and even though the lips were pretty small, they still managed to cover her clit. From there came her stomach, which was small and flat, similar to her breasts, which were probably her biggest source of embarrassment; she was still wearing an A cup. Meri inwardly groaned, _The least this place could have done for me was give me some real boobs… _Her little pink nipples were perky from the cool breeze flowing by, but it really didn't do anything to make her breasts look bigger as a whole. Her face carried delicate features: straight and thin nose, soft lips, thin eye brows, and long eye lashes. Meri knew she was pretty attractive, but often felt frustrated that she looked younger than she was, even though her height was normal. The only thing that marred her face was the two small scars on the left side of her face; one on the bottom and to the side of her forehead, near her temple, and the other on the side of her cheekbone. But she wore her hair to cover that up, both so she didn't have to be reminded of it and to keep her looking pretty.

_Right, I'm naked out in the open… _Meri looked around as she covered herself with her hands. It didn't appear that anyone was watching. If anyone was, they had gotten away with looking at her without her clothes; the thought made her dismayed. To reduce the chance of being caught, she quickly grabbed her clothes and put them on, or was about to when she realized just how late it probably was. Instead, Meri went into her backpack and picked out her sleeping clothes, the pink Delcatty ones. They were loose and easy to slip into. Her sleeping bag was already out from getting the pajamas, so she unrolled in and lied down on top of it, not quite ready to get in and go to sleep.

"Thanks, Oshawott," she looked down at her Pokémon, who was sitting down near her waist. "I'm glad I won't be stuck like that forever. Without you, I would have been."

"Osh osh wott!" He exclaimed back to her with a grin.

Meri decided to give him a hug, catching the Pokémon off guard for a second, but he returned as best he could with his short arms. "Thank you," she breathed, almost on the verge of tears. But before they came, she pulled herself back from the fear and set Oshawott down. "I wonder what makes me transform though. Maybe…" she thought back to the strange words that had come from her Sapphire, even though it threatened to put her emotions to her exterior, "…it's part of my punishment."

"Osh?" he had his head tilted in confusion and his paw on her hand.

Meri returned his worry with a reassuring smile. "It's nothing, little buddy," she took a deep breath to help clear her head before turning back to him. "I don't know about you, but today has been really exhausting for me, and I need to sleep. Goodnight, Oshawott." She rubbed his head and scratched behind his ears for a minute or two.

The Pokémon was enjoying the display of affection, "Oshhhh…." When he saw his trainer take out the Pokéball, he waved and chirped and goodnight, "Oshawooot!"

With that, Meri got inside her sleeping bag and closed her eyes. The day's events had drained her energy so thoroughly that she was a sleep within a minute.

It was almost 11 o'clock when Meri finally woke up the next morning. _Today is my day. Today is a good day. Today is my day. _She said this in her head after she had cleaned up her previous night's "camp" and was on her way to Petalburg City. However, before she went onward in her journey, she felt the need to search for a variety of berries, just in case. They tasted pretty awful, but that wasn't why she wanted them. If she ever was somehow turned into a Pokémon again, she wanted to immediately be able to turn back into herself.

After a while, her internal monologue manifested itself with spoken word, catching a trainer's ear and getting her into her first battle since losing to Teresa a couple of days ago.

"You have no idea what you're up against! I am so ready to win right now!" Meri shouted. She was determined to win. The other trainer would be defeated, and easily at that, she predicted.

He had a Zigzagoon, an easy match-up for Oshawott. Meri's prediction came to pass in a matter of less than a minute, causing the boy to sulk as he shuffled away from the battle.

The day had several battles very similar to that, with Pokémon like Sentret, Poochyena, and Wurmple, but by the fifth trainer came, Oshwott was clearly getting worn out. It showed in the battle; he was sluggish and his Water Gun simply didn't have the same pressure and speed on it that it usually did. There wasn't much she could do unfortunately, since she had been too unnerved to even get the potions she needed for her only Pokémon.

"You stay in there and relax for a while, Oshawott," Meri whispered to the Pokéball in appreciation for the great battling he had done today. He had reached level 10 at the end of the fifth battle, which was pretty exciting. She actually had to decline two more trainers for battles along her way, which, while disappointing, didn't tamper with her mood with how well the day had gone so far.

Much like Littleroot Town, and unlike Oldale Town, Petalburg City had seemed much smaller when Meri played the game in the past. There weren't skyscrapers here, but it was nonetheless a bustling city with a variety of shops and places to go. There were roads here too, but nothing more than two lanes from what she had seen so far. Naturally, the first stop when they got to Petalburg was the Pokémon center.

The Pokémon center was as busy as the rest of the city. There had to be twenty or so trainers here, just in the huge lobby. Besides the Nurse Joy in charge, there were several more Chansey than at the last Pokémon center.

"Meri! Hey, Meri!" a perky female voice called out from somewhere else in the room. Meri didn't acknowledge it though, hoping it was someone named Mary or Marie. But that would be too good to happen. Instead she turned to see a girl, probably the same age as her, waving and quickly walking in her direction. Meri couldn't be sure they were the same age, though, because the approaching girl had huge tits, practically bursting out of her very low cut frilly lavender top. "It's good to see you, Meri! How has your journey been? When did you get here? I've seriously done awesome! But why didn't you wait for me at the Professor's lab? But it's totally great to see you, girl!"

Meri scratched her head, having no idea how to respond to the excitement. And not look at her boobs. But they were right there in her face; it was really hard not to look. She wasn't into chicks, but they were pretty nice and so much bigger than hers… "I, uh, I was actually very last person to get my Pokémon. I got…distracted." Meri awkwardly settled on the last word. "I just got here, maybe an hour ago."

"Oh! I'm sorry, I should have waited for you! I didn't think you would be running late," the girl frowned apologetically. She had short and straight white hair that didn't quite reach her shoulders. Her blue eyes were aglow with excitement. "This is my second day here and—"

"Serenity Kelly?" The Nurse Joy's voice cut off the girl from talking.

"That's me!" she looked excited as she waved her hand. Within a few seconds, a Chansey was on its way over with a tray with a single Pokéball in its hands. After she had taken the ball and the Pokémon center Pokémon had bounced away, Serenity began again. "What was I saying? I don't remember. Anyways, I decided I should get a fire Pokémon too, just like I said I would! Which one did you get? Cyndaquil or Fennekin?"

_What the hell is a Fennekin? _She would have to check later, but her guess was that it was one of the newer Pokémon starters, maybe even newer than Oshawott. "I didn't get a fire Pokémon. The only Pokémon left when I got there was Oshawott," Serenity looked a little disappointed, and Meri didn't want to make it sound like she disliked her Pokémon. "But I don't mind because the little guy has been amazing to me!"

They spent quite a while talking as Meri waited in line to get her Pokémon healed. They kept talking, however, even after Oshawott had been returned. The conversation was mostly one-sided in Serenity's favor, since a lot of the talking had to do with events from the past that Meri had no recollection of as well as what the two had apparently planned for their journey before they left. Meri mostly just nodded and agreed with the girl who over the course of the conversation, she'd found out was her best friend here in Hoenn.

This girl was seriously perky. Everything about her: personality, voice, and even her breasts. It wasn't a bad thing though. It helped when Meri mentioned that she had been having something of a rough journey so far. She couldn't mention everything that had happened so far, but she said what she could or replaced some things. Instead of "I was brought here from a different world", she said, "I got distracted." Instead of "I was turned into a Pokémon by a berry and then turned back into a human with another", she said, "I got really, really lost." The only thing she had mentioned was losing to Teresa and the pervy guy at the Oldale Pokémart.

Serenity didn't seem to think the guy at the shop was that bad of guy. After all, he had given her several potions and Pokéballs for free!

Meri yawned and looked at the closest of the several clocks in the lobby. It wasn't exactly late at 9:24, but the days felt long and were very exhausting. With the fatigue weighing heavily on her, and barely able to focus on what the other girl was saying, she decided it was time to call it a night.

"Hey, I'm really tired, so I'm going to go get a room." Meri interrupted mid-speech. She wasn't normally one to interrupt, but she was feeling pretty sleepy.

"Okay, sure! I'd invite you to my room, but it's just a single small bed in the room," there seemed to be a little something different about the smile Serenity had after saying that, as if she was imagining something, but Meri dismissed it. "Hey, maybe we can do what we planned on doing back in Littleroot Town? You know, going and getting all of the badges together and you know, have fun…"

Meri was already walking off to the front desk. "Yeah, sure, see you, Serenity," she groggily responded.

The next morning Meri realized what she had done when there was the same girl as the night before waiting for her in the lobby. "Hi, Meri, you're sure up later than usual!" she laughed a little.

"Aw, crap, I forgot…" Meri whispered under her breath. "Yeah, I needed a lot of sleep after being lost for so long," Meri's words earned an apologetic look, so she hurriedly continued. "Anyways, let's get out of here. I'd like to train more." Although all the excitement her "old" friend seemed to have about everything was a little overwhelming, it might do some good for Meri to keep her positive with all of the crazy stuff that had happened to her in the past few days.

"Okay!" Serenity had a huge grin on her face as the two of them got out of the Pokémon center. It was about an hour and a half walk to get out of the city. A little longer than Meri had been hoping for, but they needed to stop at the Pokémart there and stock up on supplies. Fortunately, the guy who ran this one didn't have the same ass-grabbing eyes as the last one.

By the time the sun was falling well beneath the ocean, Meri wasn't sure if going with this girl was the right decision. She just kept talking, on and on. How, Meri wasn't sure. There was only so much a person could talk about, and it seemed like Serenity had already covered half of it in the past eight hours. Surely she would run out of things to say in the next couple of days.

The constant chatter wasn't really the biggest issue, though. While Meri liked some occasional silence, the talking nonetheless helped keep her mind away from some of the troubles she'd been having. What had really been the issue with her new companion was some of the things she would say. Things like: "Whoa, that tree is green!" in reference to a tree that was green like pretty much every other tree they had come across, and, "Tory, your beak is so sharp!" she said when poking her Torchic's beak repeatedly for some reason, being a couple examples.

Serenity had the idea of walking along the beach instead of the dirt path, since they would be walking on roads for most of their journey. It was a surprisingly logical way of thinking for what this girl had so far demonstrated she was capable of. Going to the beach sounded like fun since Meri had never been to one before; she had been born in the middle of America.

After they had gotten their camp settled on the uneven sand and had eaten, Meri decided to take the opportunity to check out her Pokédex while listening to the waves. She had a couple questions for it: What is a Fennekin? And what the hell did she turn into the previous day?

She decided that the best approach would be to just scroll all the way through the Pokédex. It was towards the bottom, but eventually, she found an answer to her second question: # 570, Zorua, the Tricky Fox Pokémon. It was incredibly fluffy and adorable! So much so that she forgot how strange and terrifying it had been to be one, even if it was for just under a day long. Meri couldn't help but show it to Serenity.

"Oh my god, that is so adorable!" Serenity practically squealed.

"I know!" Meri replied, excitedly. "I, uh, saw a guy with one in Oldale. But he, uh, looked angry so I didn't ask him where he got it." She scanned through the Pokémon's page. "It says they are one of the rarest Pokémon in the world and may hide deep within ancient forests."

Serenity looked a little crestfallen. "Then I guess I shouldn't get my hopes up about finding one," but she quickly returned to her normal self. "I'm sure I can easily find another cute Pokémon like Fennekin."

Meri just nodded before going back to her Pokédex to find Fennekin. It didn't look like he was with Oshawott's group of starters or the previous four generations, which led to the conclusion that there must now be a sixth generation with all new starters for Meri to go for. Her assumption turned out to be correct when she got past what looked to be the fifth generation's legendary Pokémon. There were three all new Pokémon with the types of Grass, Fire, and Water. Sandwiched in the middle was a Fennekin. Another fox-like Pokémon like Zorua. Its head looked like it was too big for its lithe body, but it was probably just that it was a bad photo. At the top of the page, there was a note: "This page is still being updated, along with many other Pokémon's pages from the Kalos region as more is learned from the data collected by the land's professor's and Pokémon trainers. Check back after each Pokédex update for more information."

_Darn, I guess I won't know if it's a good Pokémon until I either battle one or this thing updates, _Meri thought, disappointed, but gazed at the picture just a little longer. _Its eyes are really pretty though._

The two of them had gotten to battle a few trainers each through the course of the day, but since they opted to travel along the beach, there weren't too many Pokémon to be caught. The only Pokémon of interest to Meri was a Corpish that was too high of a level for her to even have a chance at catching, so the two girls let it go on its way.

As far as the trainers went, they were still mostly using the basic Pokémon. Although, one of Serenity's foes had something called a Shinx, an electric type. Serenity won, but it was a fairly close match. Even though Meri didn't get the pleasure of battling a new Pokémon, she did get her own partner in battle up to the next level. She laid down from her upright position and slid her Pokédex into her pocket.

"Hey Meri," Serenity asked from a few feet away where she was still in a sitting position, hands folded across her knees.

Meri didn't look over, just asking, "Yeah, what's going on?"

"Do you think we could have some fun before we go to bed?"

Out of the corner of her eye, Meri could see the white-haired girl looking over, but couldn't make out what the expression on her face was. "Sure, why not? What can we do, though?"

Serenity giggled for barely a second. "How about I show you…"

Barely a second later, a pair of lips were pressed up against Meri's. They were so soft and just a little moist. But why the hell was she being kissed by Serenity?! Meri's eyes were wide, while the other girl's were closed. She pulled away to the clear disappointment of the initiator. "Hey, what are doing?!"

"I was just kissing you… You always get excited when I give you a nice, wet one," Serenity looked hurt. "I thought we could celebrate being together again by messing around some."

Meri was dumbfounded. Just what went on between these two before she got here? Were the two of them in a relationship or something? _I do not swing that way. _"Um, it's just open out here, you know? Anyone could see us." _But I feel bad for saying no for some reason. _When Serenity picked herself up off of her friend, Meri felt a weight lift off of her chest. It took her a moment, but she realized Serenity's breasts had been on top of her. Through the surprise of the situation and how squishy they were, she must not have realized they were right on top of her. _They're so nice…_

"Well, okay," Serenity moved back to her sleeping bag. "Then maybe tomorrow night when we get to the forest. There will be plenty of cover. You know, because there will be a lot of trees and bushes and stuff..." She was facing in the other direction, but Meri knew there was a huge, ill-intentioned grin on the apparent lesbian's face.


	7. I'm So Wet!

**Notes:** Yep, a new one already. I'm really happy to have gotten it out so quickly. Soupy edited it and urged me to get it out right away. She thought it was great. Hopefully all of you think the same. Thank you to all of my readers, I'm very appreciative of your support!

**Chapter 7**

As she stretched while waking up in the morning, it felt like one of the more normal ones that Meri had had in Hoenn until she remembered what had transpired the previous night. The images of it as well as the ghostly tingle of Serenity's lips on her own woke her up very quickly. She vigorously rubbed her lips with her left hand to wipe away the feeling. But involuntarily, she kept thinking back to last night. As Serenity was changing, Meri had accidentally looked over. She could see her friend's breasts with nothing to cover them up. They were just as big as they looked beneath a bra and shirt. They couldn't be natural with how perfectly shaped they were and how perky they were, but nothing indicated they weren't. Her face was instantly red at the thought.

"Hey, it's time to get going," Meri shook the other girl, who was still very soundly asleep. The sooner the two of them got moving, the sooner things would come up to take her mind off of the previous night's surprise. There were still no sign of life from Serenity after a few seconds. "Hey, wake up, or I'll have Oshawott spray you!"

"But the party is all night long…" Serenity murmured, in some sort of dream.

"I warned you," Meri tossed out her Pokéball while wagging her finger. "Oshawott, our friend needs a little wake-up; Water Gun." Her Pokémon looked a little worried, as though he wasn't sure that was such a nice thing to be doing. "Don't worry little buddy, she'll understand."

Oshawott still looked unsure, but shrugged his shoulders and went for it. In barely a second, Serenity had been thoroughly soaked and had been blasted back several feet by the water attack.

"Mmmmm there's so much…Wait," Serenity's eyes groggily blinked open shortly after the spraying had stopped. "Why is it cold and why does it taste like water?" She looked around her, seeing the trail of water and that she was completely soaked; clothes, sleeping bag, and all. Her words came out slurred. "Meri, it's too early for a wet t-shirt contest, and nobody is around to see. Besides, you don't even have anything to show off. I'm going back to bed."

For the second time this morning, this girl had made her blush from extreme embarrassment. She clenched her fists. _No one says that and gets to live…_ "Oshawott…"

The little otter could see the look in his trainer's eyes and he did not want to be on the receiving end of the venom they held. Without hesitation, he resumed the hydration assault upon Serenity, silently apologizing to her. Whether it was the fear or coincidence, the stream was more powerful than the first time and hit the girl directly in her face. White hair and sand was now plastered to her face.

"Aaaaaaggghhhh! Okay, okay, I'll get up!" Serenity barely managed to say through coughing up the water that had been shot into her throat. She sat up and gave herself a once-over while still in her sleeping bag. "I'm so wet! But this is the wrong kind, Meri!"

Meri just let her face hit her hand.

as she sighed in resignation. There was no point in even responding to that. Long days like what to was shaping up to be were becoming the norm in this strange world, and for the time being, it was just something she would have to put up with.

…and a long day it turned out to be. They actually got to spend more time on the beach, which was a beautiful view and the sand was easy on their feet and legs, but it also got in their shoes. After a while Meri just took her shoes and socks off and walked barefoot until they reached the grass fields again. The sand in her shoes wasn't a big deal, and neither were the shells and sticks that occasionally poked her feet, but many other things were pretty unpleasant. The sun really bore down today. Serenity probably didn't mind since she, her sleeping bag, and her clothes could dry off in it. But for Meri, it was miserable. She'd be grateful when they were under the canopy of the Petalburg Woods.

On top of the heat, Oshawott had been defeated in battle by a trainer's Ducklett. It was a close battle, but that didn't change that it was frustrating to lose. Meri felt like they had the win in hand, but when the opposing Pokémon managed to get a direct shot with Sand-Attack to her Pokémon's eyes, it was over. Meri had had to give him a revive and potion afterwards as well as clean his eyes out. They were really red; she could tell that the sand had gotten quite deep in them and that they were still stinging. "Poor guy, take a long break," she cooed to him while petting him and kneading his ears with her thumb and index finger to comfort him. She returned him to his Pokéball after that. He stayed in there for the majority of the day. _Who knew a single Sand-Attack could be so effective?_

Oshawott only came out for battle once more for the day. It was to battle a guy with a Geodude. It was pretty easy since the rock Pokémon moved so slow and was weak to water type attacks. Even with this knowledge, the other trainer didn't seem fazed. The battle lasted barely a minute, and for Meri, it was easy money and experience that she was happy to take after losing early.

Serenity had also won a few battles, one against a guy with some Magikarp and a couple of trainers with a Wurmple and Weedle. Needless to say, her Torchic won each battle in a similar fashion to Oshawott's battle against the Geodude; her opponent's were no match.

They made it into the woods shortly before 5:30, and after a couple more hours of travel, they decided to call it a day and stay there for the night. That, and they had no clue where they were going. The path had split off into several directions about a half hour back, and they had had to guess which way was the right way. Neither of their maps had anything on which way to go, and the Pokédex wasn't much help either. Because of how many massive trees there was here, darkness descended quicker than usual; almost completely cutting out the sun's light before it had a chance to set. The ground here was surprisingly soft. Meri never knew how cushiony moss could be, but it was almost like a thin extra layer of bedding beneath her sleeping bag.

"I'm going to look around for a bit, so don't leave," Serenity suddenly said. "That would be really scary if no one was here when I came back."

Meri waved her now completely dry friend off. "Yeah, sure, I won't go anywhere," she said, then joked, "Don't do anything stupid."

"Oh, you know me! I wouldn't do anything dumb!" she giggled and yet you could tell she was being completely serious.

"Uh huh…" Meri wasn't really sure what to say, so she went back to what she was doing, leaving the other girl to go do whatever it was. This would give her some time alone to relax and do some research since it was hard to read with her friend's unending chatter. _Thank god, I'm free! _Then she added, _…well, at least for a little bit. _

To her disappointment though, Oshawott hadn't gone up to level 12 like she had been hoping. But she had already suspected it since there had been no buzzing or beeping from her Pokédex after the battle with the Geodude.

Based on what she had seen, there were more Pokémon in this world than there had been in the games, which would have been exciting, except that most of the ones she thought were interesting or would be good for her team were currently in the possession of other trainers, and she wasn't completely sure where to find the Pokémon in the wild. Now she was alone and not too tired to check as well, so Meri decided to start with here in the forest. All the Pokémon from Ruby and Sapphire were in here, but there were a few additions. Some were familiar, like Weedle, Caterpie, and Mankey (along with their evolutions). Some of the others were not familiar: Combee, Venipede, and Burmy (also with their evolutions). The only two that seemed like they could be strong Pokémon to her, including the Pokémon native to this region, were Shroomish, Venipede, and Mankey. Sadly though, the Pokédex listed all three as rare, and going by her luck so far in this world, it would be a bad idea to get her hopes up or invest too much time in searching for them.

Meri decided to let out Oshawott so she had some company. He was excited to see her as usual, and came over to give her a hug, which she was happy to return. Her arms and face sunk a little in his thick, somewhat coarse white fur. After a few seconds, she pulled the otter Pokémon onto her lap with his back to her, his head resting on her chest as he sat. "Let's look through this some more," she said, picking her Pokédex up again. This time, she went to the trainer info page. The first thing she check was how much money she had. It was just as she had feared—the stop she made at the Pokémart had put a serious dent in her wallet. It was enough, for now, but the battles over the last few days hadn't helped as much as she had been counting on.

Her win-loss record was equally unsatisfying. Even though she only had two losses out of nearly fifteen battles, it was still not nearly as good as she was accustomed to. But this was probably pretty realistic, at least for a world filled with Pokémon. She continued messing around on the device and showing her Pokémon affection for a while before pulling out some food, remembering neither of them had eaten since much earlier in the day. A muffin, a roll, and an Oran berry for her. Simple Pokémon food for Oshawott tonight. She'd have given him a berry, since her guess was that the Pokéfood couldn't be all that tasty, but she realized she would have to make the food she took from the Pokémon center last longer than originally expected.

"Hey, look what I found!" the ever-chipper voice of Serenity rang out from behind Meri. It wasn't exactly a surprise though since her footsteps could be stomping through the brush from quite a ways away.

Meri turned her head to look, having the sneaking suspicion that this could not be good, from what she knew about this girl in the two extraordinarily long days that she'd known her. In the big-breasted girl's arms was a very large and very painfully familiar berry. There were two of them, almost spilling out of her hold. It caused Meri to jump, knocking Oshawott onto the ground in the process. "Get those away from me right now!"

"But they tashte rerry, rerry delicioush!" Serenity said through a mouth half-full of the Watmel berry.

Meri kept backing away. "I don't care, get rid of them right now!" she was pointing at them and speaking frantically. "Take them far away from here, now!"

Serenity eyed her friend suspiciously. "Okay, fine, but I'm finishing this one," she just shrugged and walked away. "Your loss…"

Breathing a sigh of relief when the terrifying fruits were well out of sight, Meri realized that when she had freaked out, she had also tossed her Pokémon aside. "Oh god, I'm so sorry, Oshawott!" she ran over to her Pokémon to make sure he was okay. He was sitting by where they had been lying together, near the sleeping bag. "I'm so sorry, little guy, I didn't mean to throw you away like that! Are you okay?"

"Oshawott," he waved his hands and smiled in an attempt to wave away her worries, before asking a question. "Osh?"

She went and picked him up, then gave him a huge hug. "I'm fine. I'm sorry," she nestled herself into his thick fur. "Those were the berries that turned me into that Pokémon a few days ago."

There were a few short moments of silence before Oshawott started cooing to his trainer, now crying softly, to help her feel better. "Oshhh, oshhhh…" he rubbed her head slowly with his little arms.

By the time Serenity had returned a little while later, Meri had ceased crying and was lying down again, still holding her Pokémon.

Serenity sat down a few feet away. "So, what was the problem with those berries I found? I'm pretty sure they weren't poisonous."

_Did she not check before eating them?! I think I'll do the food-gathering from now on. At least they were safe this time… _"Oh yeah, that's because," Meri had to quickly think since she didn't want to come off as crazy or stupid by saying "they turned me into a Pokémon", and she hadn't thought of an excuse before Serenity had gotten back from disposing of the weird fruit. "I'm allergic to them. It's a new allergy. Really new. Yeah."

The big-breasted girl looked like she was about to cry. "But they taste soooo gooood!" she pouted. "You poor thing!"

Meri was practically suffocated by the huge chest of her new friend. "I think…I'll be…fine…if you…let me breathe," she said as she pushed away so her natural breathing apparatuses were no longer blocked. It took some deep breathing to get the oxygen running through bloodstream back to the correct proportion. Then again, berries killing this annoying girl might save her jail time later. "Where did you even find them?"

"Hmmm," Serenity placed the tip of her left index finger on her lower lip in thought. "Well, I took a walk to get warmed a bit," she snickered at that last bit for some reason, "and when I felt ready to go, I started walking back here, but then there was this really huge flower! So I ran over to it to smell it, and it smelled so sweet and wonderful! So I touched it. But then it shrunk, so I left it alone. Then there were the berries right by there. So I grabbed a couple! They were so yummy and juicy! I love juicy things. I swear I didn't know you were allergic to them, though! I'm so sorry, Meri!"

"It's fine, don't worry about it," she spoke softly, having calmed down after her earlier panic.

Then Serenity's eyes had their glow return. "I think I know of a way I can make it up to you for almost making you really sick!"

"Okay, sure, how?" Meri never should have asked that question. She realized how stupid she was when the weight of big boobs was back on her practically non-existent ones and soft lips pressed down onto hers with passion. It really shouldn't have been a surprise after last night. Despite how Serenity acted most of the time, she could be sneaky with some of the things she said. Yet here Meri was, pinned to the ground by another girl for the second night in a row. This time, the other girl tried to get her tongue in, and that's when Meri snapped out of her stupor and through her horny molester off of her. "Hey, I really don't want to do it!" then for some reason she couldn't fathom, she added, "I'm on my period!" Why did she keep giving crappy excuses instead of just saying she wasn't into her. Maybe she felt bad for suddenly becoming a different person.

Once the two of them were in their own separate sleeping bags and there hadn't been any further attempts at making out with her, she felt able to relax somewhat and drift inside her head for a bit before she went to sleep. Thinking about it, Serenity not transforming into a Pokémon from eating the Watmel berry pretty much confirmed her earlier guess that what happened to Meri was not a normal thing and that it may have had something to do with her being dropped into this world by the apparently, not just hacked, but, cursed game she had bought at the fair just over a week ago.

So much had changed and so many weird things had happened so far. With the way things were going, they could only get worse. She had done her best to prepare when she grabbed the extra Nomel berries, but still, it would be a lot better if she didn't have to deal with more crap thrown on top of what she had already dealt with up to this point. Meri shook her head, not wanting to fall too deep into a pit of negative thoughts and worries.

Instead, Meri looked up to the sky. It was mostly dark at this point, but to her disappointment, she could barely make out any stars with the trees blocking them out. Still, all the green, in combination with the taste of nature in the air, it was a lovely place to spend a day or two in. It was similar to some of the forests that bordered the routes. But unlike those, there were way more tall, ancient trees narrow and unkempt dirt pathways that made you worry about going down the wrong one, but paths nonetheless.

Before long, Meri's eyelids were getting heavy, which meant her body was finally willing to let her get to sleep. It had been a long day and she needed the sleep. A furry, warm body was next to her when she woke up in the middle of the night. _I must've forgotten to return Oshawott before I fell asleep. _She laughed quietly and tiredly to herself. His breathing was steady and calm. It was nice to have someone there to cuddle, so she left him out and pulled him a little closer, soon drifting back into this night's dream world.

"Aaaaaaahhhhhhh!" the painfully loud and high-pitched squeal was what greeted Meri in the morning. Instead of an alarm clock, she'd been woken prematurely by her travel partner's scream of horror.

Meri was instantly alert, hopping out of her sleeping bag, frightened by the sudden wail. "What is it? What's happening?!"

"Get it off meeeeeee!" the shrieking continued, but not quite as loud as the initial one. Serenity was laying on the ground, helplessly beneath the immense power that could only be mustered by a Pokémon like Wurmple.

"Oh, it's just a Wurmple. I thought we were in serious danger for a second," Meri breathed a sigh of relief then laughed a little.

"This isn't funny! Get it away!" the disgust and fright was evident in her voice.

Meri just laughed some more. "Okay, hold on a second," she searched for Oshawott's Pokéball, wishing she had a cell phone to capture the other girl's freak out. When she pulled it out of her backpack, tossed it out, and nothing came out, she got immensely worried. "Oshawott, where are you?!"

"Osh," a slightly strangled moan came from right next to Meri's left ear.

Then she remembered that she had never put him back in his Pokéball the night before and she had actually been holding on to him this whole time, not realizing it with how suddenly she had had to wake up. "Uh, sorry, little guy," she said awkwardly as she sat him down on the sleeping bag . "Do you think you could Water Gun that Wurmple over there? You don't have to hit Serenity this time if you don't want to."

The Wurmple was still sitting on top of the trainer it had frightened awake, oblivious to her screaming and the Pokémon that was about to spray it away. In an instant, the clueless bug had been blasted to the other side of the clearing that had been the girls' camp for the night. It didn't get up right away, so Meri shrugged her shoulders, figuring that she might as well try and catch it. With that, she dove into her backpack once again to dig out a shrunken Pokéball. Once she had pulled it out, she immediately enlarged it and looked at the Wurmple. It was still on its back, not moving, so she threw the Pokéball at it, hitting it on its lower body. It was immediately engulfed in red light, then vacuumed into the capture device, which snapped shut with a loud snap. It seemed like Pokéballs always shook after a Pokémon was brought inside, but never once did it shake.

"Well, that was easy," Meri commented, slightly taken aback by the ease of her first capture. "Probably because it was a bug Pokémon. Thanks for your help, Oshawott." She walked over to collect her newest partner. She let it out right after. It was still on its back. Figuring it was fainted, she brought it over by her backpack and took out a revive and a potion. As soon as she used it, the bug began to wake up.

When the medicinal spray in the can had run completely out, the Wurmple looked at Meri and blinked a few times. Without a sound, it turned around and began shuffling away towards the place, or rather, the person, it had found very comfortable just a minute earlier.

"Oh my Arceus, it's going to touch me agaaaaain!"


	8. For Unique Trainers

**Notes: **Here it is, after two long weeks. I'd like to have gotten it out sooner, but a lot's been going on. Thank you to Soupy for editing and thank you to everyone who's read this. Seriously, thank you. Now, enjoy!

**Chapter 8**

"Ohhh, it's so good to be in a bed again!" Serenity's words spoke what both the girls were thinking as they fell into the mattresses in their room at the Rustboro City Pokémon center. It had taken them another two and a half days to get here from where they had first stopped in the forest. The two girls had thought they were lost, so they had back tracked several times. When the pair finally got to the exit, it became apparent that nearly every path led to the exit, meaning there was no wrong way, and no need to ever turn back. It took them at least a day longer than it shoulve have

Overall, things hadn't been all that eventful. Oshawott had finally gotten up to level 12 and she had even managed to win a battle with Wurmple. It wasn't much considering how many days and battles it took, but right now, a victory was a victory.

A subtle victory for Meri meant that Serenity had stopped pestering her to make out and…do other things with her. What wasn't a victory though was when Meri's Nomel berries had fallen out of her bag one night. Serenity had teased her about it a couple times the last two days. Even worse, two of four had been squished really bad and had left that pocket of her backpack sticky and smelling like lemonade. After that, she double-bagged the remaining two berries and did her best to make sure they weren't in a position to be ruined again. Cleaning all of the pulp and acrid juice was not fun.

Once the girls had gotten things arranged and settled in the room, they decided to go check out the town. Getting there, it was straight to the Pokémon center instead of stopping into some stores at first arrival at Meri's insistence, despite seeing some interesting places on the way to Pokémon center. There was still a good five or six hours left of daylight, so some time could be spent exploring the town or training their Pokémon.

"I think we should get something to eat first," Serenity suggested. "We haven't eaten much today."

To her embarrassment, Meri's stomach was vocal in its agreement. "Good idea, let's head downstairs and see what they have in here."

Serenity frowned a little in disappointment. "I was hoping for something better than Pokémon center food. Like from a restaurant or something!"

"Well, you know, I'm kind of short on cash right now, and Pokémon supplies come before nice food," said Meri in disappointment.

"Oh, yeah, because you lost all of those battles!" There was no attempt to shame Meri in her voice, but it nonetheless had that effect.

Meri groaned in exasperation and glared at the girl sitting on the bed opposite hers. "Yes, Serenity, thank you for reminding me of my recent lack of success."

Apparently the sarcasm didn't make it through to Serenity. "No problem," she smiled. "And people said I wasn't very smart, but I remember anything!"

Another day, another moment where this girl left Meri speechless for all the wrong reasons. It was true though, Meri had been doing very poorly lately and was now on a losing streak of four. Winning one battle with each of her Pokémon had been all she'd managed. It was humiliating.

It didn't help, either, that Serenity had won all but one battle. Her Torchic was really fast, leaving no time for opponent's to attack, and it had no trouble getting out of the way of attacks. In other words, the last two days had been completely demoralizing for Meri.

"I can pay for you!" Serenity cheerily offered. "I have a lot of money!"

It just made Meri sigh. "Thanks, but go without me, I'll eat here." She wasn't yet ready to admit defeat.

As the two of them waited for their Pokémon to be brought out from the back of the Pokémon center after being healed, Serenity again checked to see if she could pay for her best friend's meal, but was declined for the second time, so she gave up. They agreed to meet at the Trainer's School once Serenity had finished at whatever restaurant she chose. Meri would be able to eat pretty quickly here, then be able to spend some time at the school, figuring out why she had been incapable of winning recently. The thought was absolutely humiliating and she wanted nothing to do with the place, since she never went there in-game, but the idea of losing again and again was even worse, so she was forced to suck it up and go.

When Meri got there, there was a small woman sitting at a desk near the entrance. She had curly green hair with matching eyes, and looked rather bored. "I need to see your Pokédex before you go in," she stuck her hand out, not looking up from her computer. Meri awkwardly handed her the device after fishing it out of her pocket. There was a sign on the counter that read: "Those under the age of 16 must pay a fee of 500 Pokédollars for one day's admission." That must have been why the woman asked for the Pokédex. Just a few seconds later and it was being held back to her. "Here," she said flatly as Meri took back her machine as well as some sort of pamphlet. "Welcome to the Rustboro Pokémon Trainer's School, where knowledge is a rock-solid foundation for future victory. Your admission is free. Here is a map and schedule."

_How enthusiastic, _Meri thought to herself sarcastically as she walked away from the receptionist. She opened the folded map to see what she could do in this place. They had a variety of classes throughout the day. One was already in progress in Room 22, which was apparently upstairs. This floor was essentially a library, according to the map, while the other floor was where the classes were taught.

The class was about teaching environmental strategy; in other words, using your surroundings to your advantage. When she reached the room, there was a neatly printed sign on the room that disappointed her: "Please do not come into my classes late and interrupt them. Thank you for your respect."

It was the only class going on right now, so she had no choice but to go back downstairs and read a book. This would not be fun. She was never much a fan of reading. With all the time she had to herself at home in real life, she could have finished thousands of books had she wanted to, but none, not even the "classics" like Oliver Twist, The Odyssey, or Of Mice & Men caught her eye. Contemporary best sellers like Harry Potter and The Hunger Games were equally ineffective. All of her time as a young child went to playing with her friends, playing Pokémon, or lying around doing nothing. When she had gotten into middle school, a lot of the time spent doing nothing slowly allocated itself to porn and masturbation, and by high school, smoking pot had become a regular thing as well, but that wasn't why she was here. She desperately needed to win some battles. In order to that, she would have to read books. Actually read them. Not pull what she did in class and just pretend to read them and then take her essays from things people said on the internet. Besides, even if she knew where to get some of the magical green (and sometimes sorta purple) plant, she probably wouldn't even have the money to buy any. She'd have to restock on supplies for her Pokémon before anything else.

Meri sighed to herself and sulked her way over to one of the shelves. Many of them were rather old; the paint was chipped away, and it looked like they hadn't been dusted in ages. Many of the books had wrinkled and cracked spines or even tears on the front or back cover. This shelf was just information on individual types of Pokémon, which wasn't what she needed. With that, she went down the line to look for what she needed. Her Pokémon hadn't been out-leveled much so far, she'd actually had several victories come against higher-leveled opponents. But she'd also had several losses against trainers with weaker Pokémon than hers. She knew the strengths and weaknesses of each type, and so far, most of the Pokémon she had fought, she recognized. So what was the issue? Then, just past the section for History of Pokémon Battles, she came across the section that would probably help the most: Battle Strategy and Theory.

It didn't seem like the books were organized very well, though, if at all, like they had just been placed where they fit, and called good. Books of different topics were intermingled and there were even a few that didn't look like they belonged on this shelf. The majority of the books, from what Meri could tell from the confused organization of the books, were dedicated to beginners, which she was not, and yet she was, if her recent lack of success was a reliable indicator. She had cleared Ruby many times with a variety of Pokémon. So the obvious choice was to pick up one the books for advanced trainers. A few minutes later, she realized that she did not make the right decision with her book. There were so many concepts she'd never considered as well as the use of advanced math and science that just made her dizzier than anything since she got her scar.

Instead, Meri looked for another book, something less intense. A few minutes of going up and down the shelf, she came across a good one: "Working With Low Level and First Form Pokémon" by Bugsy Pollena. On the inside cover, it had a picture of the author, who was the gym leader of the Azalea Town Gym in Johto. Hopefully this book wouldn't focus bugs. Although Meri had one at the moment, she was sure how long she would be keeping Wurmple with her. But for now, he was great for when Serenity was being especially brain-dead.

An hour and a half or so later, the books had been finished. Part of the reason she had picked it out was because it wasn't especially thick. She was already being forced to read a book, so she didn't need to force herself to read a big one. The book did spend a decent amount of time on bug-types, but it did teach her a few things she could do with Oshawott. Things that, now that she thought about it, were pretty simple, like combining moves and ways of slowly wearing down opponents. With this new knowledge, Meri felt as though she had a better shot at winning than before coming in.

Now to find Serenity. Surely she had finished her lunch by now. She was nowhere to be found inside the library, so she checked upstairs, but again didn't find her, which only left that she was waiting outside or still eating. It turned out to be the latter to Meri's dismay. You would think nearly two hours would have been enough time.

It was close to a half hour before the big-breasted girl showed up. "Hi, Meri, I'm here!" she called from a block away. When she had walked over to Meri, she continued, "Sorry I took so long! The waiter was really cute! He gave me his PokéNav number and said I didn't need to tip him! Can you believe how nice that was of him?"

All Meri had to do to find out why she didn't have to pay a tip and had gotten such preferential treatment was look down. Serenity's top had fallen quite low at some point, and her cleavage was very much out in the open. "Yeah, how nice of him…" _You lucky bitch, why can't I get free stuff with my tits?!_ "Let's get out of here and do something."

This was actually sort of an interesting city, they found out, after some exploring. There was a mall where they spent a ton of time shopping. Or at least Serenity did. Meri was stuck window shopping for several hours, essentially broke. It was a bit depressing when she saw an amazing dress. She didn't wear a ton of them, but this one was so pretty! It was white with little bright green leaves scattered on it. _But it costs so much…_ Maybe it would still be here after she had won some battles. Screw getting some good food, she wanted that dress.

Besides the mall, there were a ton of smaller shops and businesses of various types that lined the streets. Nothing was too much of note until they ended up inside a shop called "Surprising Supplies: Unique Items for the Unique Trainer". They thought it was a store with specialty items for Pokémon trainers. It was mostly true.

"So, what do you recommend?" Meri asked of the guy behind the counter.

He laughed a little and grinned. He looked like a nice guy: Average build, didn't have any tattoos or piercings, and didn't stare at their asses or Serenity's tits. At least he seemed like a nice guy. "Well for you, it depends on what Pokémon you have or are planning to get. For your older sister, I recommend the back room. That's where the best items are, but you don't look old enough to go back there, kid." He pointed to back left of the store.

"We're the same age!" the indignation burned in Meri's cheeks. "Come on Serenity, let's see this back room." She squeezed her apparent senior's hand and brought her in the direction the guy had pointed. There was a large banner, split in two, in front of it. The room wasn't especially big, but it had shelves and racks with lots of items. Definitely not the type of items either girl was expecting. It only made Meri's face burn brighter. "I don't think—"

Serenity, on the other hand, was a bit more enthusiastic about their discovery; a kid in a candy store. Or, in this case, a nymphomaniac in a secret sex shop filled with Pokémon-themed and shaped toys. Today just kept getting better. "Oh Arceus, this place is amazing!" Her eyes were brightly shining stars as she looked all around her in wonder.

All over again, it made Meri wonder just what these two girls did together before she arrived in Hoenn, but it probably explained just why there was vibrator in her backpack. It didn't seem like Serenity knew it was in her backpack, so that was a bit nice.

"Oooh, look at these, Meri! Aren't they adorable?" the sex-obsessed girl called over from the other end of the room, holding a box that was about a foot long, and eight inches tall.

Inside were things of a different shapes, colors, and sizes. On top, there was a label that read "Pocket Monsters Mini Delights!" Below there were six labels, from right to left: "Massive Mightyena" was the longest and thickest, had a blood-red color to it, and had some sort of large circular part at one end; "Vibrating Vibrava" was thin and red, with a bend of sorts in the middle; "Polar Empoleon" had a dark blue at the thick end that faded to an almost-white blue at the other pointed, but not sharp, end; "Veiny Vaporeon", like the previous one, was medium-sized at around five-and-a-half or so inches, but was covered in veins like the name suggested, and looked somewhat similar to the Mightyena one, but was a light blue; "Baby Bouffalant" was probably less than five inches, and was brown with black "clouds" on it, as well as a little round base at the bottom; "Burning Blaziken" broke the trend of getting smaller, and went back to being a medium-sized one, and was bright red and similar in shape to the Empoleon dildo.

It turned out she had been reading the back while Meri had been reading the embarrassing front. "It says that one vibrates, one is for those who like a big boy, another can be filled with water and frozen, one is a butt plug, there's one to hit all sorts of spots, and, oooh, one that heat's up!"

"I think you should put it away and we should go," Meri said backing away, trying to get her friend to follow. "I'm not sure we're old enough to be in here."

Serenity completely ignored her. "I'm so getting this! Even if I can't use a few of them all the time." This made Meri's face go from red to pale in an instant before she got some relief.

There was no way this was going to happen. "We're leaving now, or Wurmple's coming out!"

"But where else am I—" She was interrupted before she could finish.

Meri flashed a very stern look. "I don't care. Now, or you're going to spend the rest of the day with bug crawling all over your body."

The girl holding the box of sex toys looked at Meri a little confused, but also pouty, trying to get her to change her mind. Realizing it wouldn't work after some staring, she huffed before putting it back and crossing her arms in frustration. "Fine. But I don't see why you're so against this. If a guy was willing to sell this to us, normally you'd be all over it. Like, I know it's a little weird that they're shaped like actual Pokémon's junk, but there's so much to do with these!"

Meri stood there silently for a short time, unsure what to say. Was the oblivious girl in front of her finally noticing that she might not be the same person she had known for so long? "It's best to save our money for our Pokémon. We're going to have a party of six each soon, and that's going to cost a lot. So we need to save money now, especially after you just bought so much stuff before we even got here."

It took a few seconds before Serenity responded, but it seemed as though she accepted the reasoning, "Good point," she sighed, still disappointed. "Let's go..."

The two of them made their way back to their room at the Pokémon center. It had been a pretty tiring day, but that was pretty normal now, since she had spent the entire past week and a half or so walking. Anyways, her calves had gotten denser as of late, which meant she'd exercised more in this short time than she had since middle school. It was a relief to be able to sit down on her and lay back.

As the two talked, the conversation again came back to Meri's money situation. It got there when Meri checked in on exactly how much she had and began complaining. "2318 Pokédollars! Can you believe that? How is a trainer supposed to make their journey with just that?" Meri growled in anger, throwing a mini-tantrum.

"I can give you some money! I still have over 15000 Pokédollars left," Serenity smiled to Meri, both proud of herself and in an attempt to get Meri to accept her offer.

But Meri just shook her head. "I can't do that," she declined. "I have to do this on my own. I have to prove that I can win battles and do well by myself, or else I'll never…" she trailed off, not wanting to finish the sentence, both because it would require a lot of explanation and because it wasn't pleasant to think about potentially failing to get back to her world. At the last second, she added, "Only if I'm really desperate."

They went to sleep soon after. Thankfully, Serenity hadn't tried to make any more moves on Meri since the first night in the forest. In the scheme of things, thought, it was just a minor annoyance. In the back of her mind constantly was the fact that she was stuck in Hoenn for who knew how long. Nothing so far had suggested how to get home, and it was starting to worry her. The best thing she could come up with so far was going through all of the gyms, the Elite Four, and then the Champion. She needed someone to cuddle with. She briefly considered getting bed with Serenity, but decided against it since she would probably get the wrong idea. Instead, she went to her furry friend, Oshawott. Letting him out, he rubbed his eyes and looked at her through groggy surprise, as though he'd just been woken up. "I'm a little cold, so I need someone to help warm me up to sleep," she scratched the back of her head as she awkwardly whispered to her Pokémon. She picked him up and carried him in both arms to the bed and got under the covers. It turned out to be just what she had needed, and the two were asleep not ten minutes later.


	9. Who Are You Here to Flirt With?

**Notes: **Yep, here's the next one. It's the conclusion to chapter 8. I split it into two parts because of how long it ended up being. This chapter went a bit different direction than I had originally planned, but it ended up making the chapter so much better. Thank you for all the support. Thank you to Soupy for editing it. Here we go!

**Chapter 8.5**

Today would be dedicated entirely to their Pokémon. Their first stop would be Route 116. They wouldn't be going very deep into it, but hopefully they would find some good Pokémon to catch and trainers to beat. The early part of the day was spent on defeating wild Pokémon. The morning was successful, except with Wurmple. Using bug Pokémon was hard, or at least they were before evolving. Oshawott was doing well though, having no problem against his opponents. Too bad none of the Pokémon caught her eye.

Serenity, however, saw something she liked: a Whismur. Her reaction when seeing it, no surprise, was "It's so adorable, Meri!" to which Meri just nodded and mumbled a response. It looked like a weird, pink, fat rabbit to her. Besides, it didn't stay cute after evolving, so she wasn't sure how much longer Serenity's opinion would last. It tried running away when it realized that it was going to be captured, but some quick moves by Torchic and an Ember right in the wild Pokémon's face, and it was out cold. Serenity threw her Pokéball and had her adorable Pokémon in no time at all. The first thing she did was let it out and give the poor thing a huge hug after just setting fire to its face.

After what felt like forever, but was just a few hours, Meri got her first chance to show what she had learned the previous day in her studies at the Trainer's School.

A girl approached them. Her lime-green hair was in an odd hairstyle; it had a big loop on each side that led to the back of her head and went straight down from there; somewhere between a ribbon and a pretzel. Meri couldn't help but laugh. Despite her attempts to cover it up, she was called out by the girl. "What are you laughing at?" She glared with her intense yellow-green eyes.

Meri took a second, probably too long, to collect herself. "What? I just thought of a funny joke in my head, that's all."

"You were looking at me when you laughed!" she wasn't buying it for a second. "Why are you laughing at me, flat-chest?"

"It looks like you let a five year-old do your hair today," it was a bit more insulting than she had intended, but she was asking for it now.

The girl had such a pissed-off face now. "You've done it now! Prepare to be shamed when I put you in the dirt where someone so vile as yourself belongs!" She grasped at the Pokéball clipped to her frilly knee-length red skirt.

Meri just rolled her eyes and grabbed her own Pokéball. They threw out their balls at the same time. The girl with the stuck-up-sounding voice sent a Butterfree while Meri went with her most trustworthy partner, Oshawott.

While the other girl was going on like a yappy little dog about how amazingly perfect her Pokémon was, Meri ordered a Water Gun from Oshawott, sending the Butterfree reeling. It landed several feet away, moaning its name.

"Hey, that's not fair!" she started screaming, "That's cheating! You didn't let me attack! Let me attack your Pokémon now!"

Was this chick serious? Meri just laughed. "Do it again, Oshawott!" she ordered. So this didn't look like it would be the chance to actually test out to be the chance to test out her new battle plans. Oshawott simply re-blasted the butterfly Pokémon. It was still struggling to get up off of the ground; the water must have been weighing its delicate and light wings down. When it hit the ground for the second time, it didn't get up.

Meri was still laughing at how easy of a battle this girl's gloating and inattentiveness had given her. But the spoiled-acting girl was clearly not so amused by the result; she was red in the face and giving the glare of death to Meri. "What was that? Why did you cheat?"

Meri didn't really know how to react, but did stop laughing. "Look, it's a battle, you can't stand there talking and not tell your Pokémon to do something if you hope to win. Chill out."

"No! You can't trick me!" she was screaming at this point. "I'm going to get you to this! You will pay for ruining my first battle! Carriana Montgomery Felicia Alistair Kensington does not take such lowlife fraud lightly. You…what is your name, girl?"

"Meri. But I really think you should calm down, you'll have lots of other battles. Just pay attention next time—" but her attempt to diffuse the situation felt flat.

"You…you bitch!" she shouted, then huffed. "Ugh, you're making a lady me use such dirty language with how disrespectful you're being. I cannot stand another second in your presence." She began walking away.

A few seconds later, Meri called out. "You forgot your Pokémon!" It was still lying on the ground, passed out.

Carriana only looked to be redder as she turned around to return her Pokémon. "Don't think this one favor will excuse you and your fake-chested friend from my wrath…Meri!"

"You fucking cunt!" The shriek came from the side of Meri. She looked over to see Serenity with hatred in her eyes directed at the loser of the battle. "I'm going to tear your hair out and—" without another word, she was on the girl doing just as she said she would: Serenity had death-gripped the loops Carriana had as her hair, and was pulling her entire head back and forth. "Take it back, you jealous bitch!"

The rich girl was screaming as well, "Get off of me! You're insane!" Somewhere along the line, she got free and slapped Serenity hard across the face and kicked her in the stomach, forcing her back while clutching her stomach. Carriana was about to go in for another shot, but Serenity grabbed her hair again, which had lost its shape, and even a slight amount of volume; strands were visible on the ground, like accents on the darker green grass. Carriana grabbed her foe's hair as well, and in a matter of seconds, they were a screaming- hair-ripping pile of psychotic. There was even a guy a little ways away watching them go at it.

"Whoa, there, girl, calm down!" Meri ran up and put her arms around Serenity's waist, struggling to pick her friend up off of Carriana. It didn't stop Serenity from struggling and continuing to scream while Carriana stood there with the most terrified expression on her face. Her Oxford blue, silk blouse had a huge hole in it, exposing part of her black push-up bra "Get—out—of—here—" Meri said between taking elbows to her face and forehead. With that, her former opponent was running for her life in the direction of Rustboro.

"Why did you stop me?" Serenity shouted. "Did you hear what she said?! These are all-natural god-damn it and I will not let a snooty bitch like her say they're not!" She crossed her arms a minute later, finally relenting to the fact that her insulter was gone.

That was the first time Meri had seen Serenity mad, or even just upset. It was kind of really scary and her head hurt now.

After that, Meir decided it would be best for the two of them to go somewhere else to train for a little while. They ended up in Route 105, which was to the North of Rustboro City. Here, the day went pretty well. They each won several matches.

Serenity's last battle of the day came against a young guy with an Oddish and a Meditite. The Oddish was easily wrapped up with a couple of Embers, but the Meditite was a little more difficult to defeat with its use of Detect and Confusion. The Psychic attack was hard to avoid and was super effective. Torchic's speed was barely a help in the battle. When she managed to get close enough to land a hit, Detect was used at the last second.

It was getting obvious that Torchic didn't have much left in the tank, when Serenity had a moment of genius. She ordered her Pokémon to use Ember on Meditite. When it Torchic ran up and used it, Meditite went to its fallback of Detect, but then, "Slide under it and use Peck!" Serenity called out. Meditite had been levitating the whole time, and while it would help with ground-type attacks, this strength had been exploited. Torchic used Peck, knocking it on the ground face-first. It was out cold with that blow, giving Serenity a narrow victory.

"We won, we won, Torchic, we-!" she stopped mid-celebration, half-way to running up and giving her Pokémon the usual post-win hug when Torchic began glowing. Her shape began to change and growing. Meri couldn't help but wonder if it hurt, but when it had all stopped, the now-Combusken appeared unhurt, and if anything, it looked like it had never felt better in its life. Whereas Serenity had stopped and stared in amazement, her newly-evolved Pokémon ran up to her and did something it hadn't been capable of before: it hugged her. Its trainer gladly bent over and returned the gesture. "You're even warmer than before Combusken!" Serenity exclaimed as she brought her Pokémon even closer to her.

As happy as Meri was for her friend getting her Pokémon to evolve, Meri couldn't help but be a little disappointed. _I wish I had gotten Oshawott to evolve first… _

That disappointment just turned into motivation for Meri. At the end of their very long day of training, she was on a hot streak and as confident as ever. "I never thought I would say it, but books are a good thing, sometimes!" It felt weird saying it, but she hadn't lost a battle since reading that book, and she was ecstatic! Looking at how much money she now had also cheered her up significantly: 8301 Pokédollars in her account! Despite the incident with Carriana earlier in the day, today had been very fruitful for the both of them.

"I don't know how you did it! I could never make it past the first chapter of any book, you know?" Serenity laughed a little. "So what do you want to do now? I was thinking we could go to the restaurant I went to yesterday. It was so good, you have no idea!"

Meri scoffed, knowing the real reason she wanted to go. "You just want to see that cute waiter again. You know he just—" she stopped midsentence, reconsidering her words.

"What is it?" Serenity had the most innocent and curious look on her face.

"It's nothing, sure let's go," she didn't want to say anything about Serenity's tits after her little outburst earlier, even if the waiter was probably being a perv and wanted to get at them. "But I think we should get cleaned up first. I don't know about you, but I'm feeling a little gross after walking around all day in the sun."

Serenity nodded in agreement and smiled. "Yeah, so am I. It'll be my treat! As part of celebrating Combusken evolving." She was absolutely beaming with pride of her accomplishment."No buts, either, Meri!"

While she was somewhat begrudging about not being allowed to pay for her own stuff, she accepted, feeling like tonight was a good time to celebrate some. "Alright, alright, fine," after a few seconds pause, she awkwardly added, "Thanks, Serenity. I'll pay you back some time, no buts."

"If you really want to repay me, you can—"

Meri quickly interrupted, knowing exactly where this was going. "Nope. I, uh, need a couple more days, for things to finish." _I really need to just tell her I'm not interested._

When they got back to their room, they took their showers and got ready for their celebration dinner at "Kalosia Maestosa", where Serenity had eaten the day before. While in the shower, Meri worried just a little that the girl would make a surprise entrance, but fortunately, she showed restraint, giving Meri time to think about everything.

Despite how good of a day it had been, so many questions still loitered in the back of her mind. Nothing so far had presented any answers. Maybe it's because she hadn't been looking, because she'd avoided thinking about her predicament until late at night, when it forced its way through the barriers she had put up, to keep her from getting sleep or by haunting her dreams.

What was happening back in the other world while she was here? Was everyone searching for her? Maybe by now they thought they were searching for a body… Or had time even been passing there? When she got back, how would she explain what had happened and where she had been? They would probably lock her up in an institution. The thought, although somewhat frightening, made her laugh a little.

"So, what's this guy's name? What's he like?" Meri prodded her friend for answers about the supposed cutie that would be awaiting them at the restaurant as their server for the night. They were on their way there now. The sun was just setting and the city was beginning to light up. New places were opening up: music venues, casinos, and even what looked like a strip club with a Gardevoir on the sign.

Meri didn't have a dress with her in her backpack, she realized, as they were getting ready. All she had were her day clothes and her pajamas. She was really worried, but Serenity actually knew what to do, and when she told her, Meri realized just how obvious It was: the PC could store items, not just Pokémon. There was even an outfit in there waiting for her. It was pretty clearly picked out by the other girl who had been here before her, the actual Meri, but it would do until she could get something to her preference. It was a unsurprisingly low-cut, but black dress had sort of a helix of two red lines that started at the middle bottom of her dress, which was just above her knees, and went around her back, returned to the front, and met in between her breasts. To go with them, there were black stockings and a pair of black high heels, something Meri was still somewhat new with walking in. She'd have to wear this at events until she could pick up something she preferred.

"Torin," she grinned. "He's tall, fit, and really nice. Don't try to steal him from me." Serenity giggled after the last part.

Meri laughed as well. "Don't worry; I'm not that kind of girl." She stumbled for a moment, but quickly regained herself. "I should have just stuck with wearing a normal pair of shoes instead of these things."

"But they look so good on you! They totally bring out your cute little ass," Serenity assured her.

Meri shrugged, still unconvinced. "If you say so."

"There it is!" Serenity pointed to a nice-looking building about fifty feet away. It looked brand new. There was a sign on it with the restaurant's name and flame's flowing out of pillars near the entrance. Suddenly, Meri got the feeling she'd be very happy that she wasn't paying for her food tonight.

When they stepped inside and were greeted, Serenity requested a table for two and Torin as their waiter. The place was packed, so they had to wait a while to get a seat since they hadn't made a reservation. When they finally sat down and got the menu, Meri's suspicions were confirmed: this was not cheap at all; 2000 Pokédollars was the lowest price for any meal here.

Within a couple minutes, Torin came over and greeted them, paying special attention to Serenity. He was as described, with a swimmer's body, short dirty blonde hair, and a great smile.

Serenity ordered the Feebas with Rhubarb and Celery while Meri went with the spicy Grumpig cutlets with chipotle slaw. Meri was glad when he finally left; just as she had thought when her friend first mentioned him, he was just trying to work his way into Serenity's pants, or at least his hand into her shirt. It wasn't like Meri could say anything though, so she just let them ignore her while they were flirting. He checked back on them much more often than he did with his other tables.

In between the interruptions, Meri and Serenity managed to have some conversation. "I'm ready to face the gym tomorrow," Serenity started. "Are you?"

It caught Meri completely off guard. She hadn't really thought about doing it so soon. After all, she had just gotten back in her groove today. "I don't know, but it might be a good idea to do it while I'm still hot."

"You're always hot," the suggestive tone in her voice was very evident.

Meri was blushing for some reason, she had no idea why. She really should be used to the comments by now. "Who are you here to flirt with? Torin or me?" Serenity just grinned cheekily in response. "Anyways," she sighed, "Yeah, I want to try. I have a type-advantage with Oshawott, anyways, so it shouldn't be too hard."

"Great! I can't wait for us to get our second badges!" Serenity exclaimed in glee, as though they'd already won. "Then we can go to Verdanturf Town and maybe see a Pokémon contest! I haven't been to one in a long time."

Pausing for a second, Meri realized Serenity said something a little odd. "Wait, what was that? Did you say 'second badge'?"

"Yeah! The ones we got in Petalburg!" She looked quite pleased with herself.

_Well, shit… _In the game, the Petalburg gym was the fifth one you went to. But Serenity went there for her first badge. Which means probably everyone else from Littleroot Town did. That mean meant she was behind everyone else. It also mean that the gyms were differently arranged or set up in a different manner than in the game. "I…didn't get mine…"

Serenity was shocked. "Oh no! We'll have to go back there as soon as we get the badge here! Why didn't you get it?"

"I didn't know—er, I forgot," Meri stammered out her response. "But that's okay, We can get some other time." She sighed in resignation. Maybe the bridge from Route 104 to Route 110 would be finished when they got in that area.

When they had finished their dinners, Meri was still feeling sort of down, and Serenity noticed. "I know what'll cheer you up; let's get some dessert!"

"Okay, no complaints here!" Why not gorge a little. This place's food was damn tasty, so she wasn't about to pass up dessert. It wasn't like it would cause her to put on any weight, either, especially with how much walking she'd been doing these past couple of weeks.

When Torin came back and took their dishes away, Serenity asked for a dessert menu. After looking over it a couple of times and practically drooling at some of the descriptions, they settle on the Rawst berry & white chocolate millefeuille. It was incredible: unbelievable fluffy and light, but the white chocolate in combination with the berries (which were very similar to strawberries) was the perfect level of sweetness for her.

Barely after swallowing her first bite, however, something didn't feel right. Nausea swept over her whole body in a matter of seconds. Not realizing it right away, she was clutching her stomach and bending over.

"Hey, y-you oookay-ay, Meriiii?" Serenity's voice was echoing and coming out so slowly.

It took several seconds before Meri could formulate any sort of response, but couldn't manage a coherent one. "Yeah, I…bathroom…" she pushed herself up and her chair back with great effort and began stumbling away from the table. Getting to the bathroom wasn't easy; she walked into several people and tables on her way.

The feeling of fire scorching her skin was there before she made it inside. She now knew what it was, but the extreme discomfort and distress she was feeling kept her normal thought process from helping her, so she just kept on in the direction she was heading, not able to think of what else she could do. The black fur was growing and her bones changing shape now as she stepped inside the bathroom. The terror of the whole situation was overwhelming. She ran into one of the stalls, unsure of what else she could do, where she passed out.


	10. It Actually Worked!

** Notes: **I'm back again with a new chapter. It's good to finally get it up. When I originally sent it to my editor, we both agreed it wasn't very good. So after some days of rewriting, here it is. Who's got X or Y? I have y, and have to say, it's fantastic. Anywyas, thanks for the patience. Expect Chapter 10 in the next two or three days, unless needs massive rewrites. Quality first.

**Chapter 9**

"…are you alright?," the voice called out, cutting into the darkness of sleep Meri was in. She opened her eyes, feeling some painful stiffness in her body, and some blurriness was still in her vision. "Meri?"

That was Serenity's voice! But why was she trying to get Meri's attention. She looked around for a second, then realized she was on the ground in a bathroom stall, lying in a pile of clothes. In an instant, she remembered what had gotten her in here. She was back to being a Pokémon. There was no way she could let Serenity see this! What if she tried to capture her? What would happen to her then? Meri, turned back into what she now knew to be a Zorua, looked around, panicking. There was a window that she might be able to get to, but it was really high up. Even after she climbed onto the toilet, it was still a pretty high jump.

"What's wrong, Meri? Why are your clothes on the floor?" Serenity's voice had gotten closer now, the worry in her voice only becoming more evident. It's not like Meri could respond in this state. "I'm going to see if you're okay, but if you don't want me to look, say something."

_Damnit_, Meri had to do this quick if she didn't want to be seen. She crouched, bunching up her muscles in preparation. Her friend's footsteps were getting even closer. With that, she put everything she had into the jump. She barely made it; her front paws were on the ledge, so she had to pull the rest of her body up, which was not easy, but the adrenaline helped to get her up and over the ledge, and onto the ground, where she landed awkwardly. Her back left leg hurt when she landed, causing her to yip from the pain. It didn't feel broken, though, so she tried to ignore it and figure out what her next move would be.

The only way to change back to being a human would be the Nomel berries, but those were all the way back at the Pokémon center. But how would she get there without being caught? She had the feeling that she had learned something that would help when she read about it Zorua in the Pokédex a few days ago, but couldn't figure it out. All that Meri could think of to do was to try and sneak her way there. But then, Meri heard her naming being called, in great distress. Locating the source moments later, she saw Serenity running in the general direction of the Pokémon center. Maybe she thought her friend had gone back there.

That meant there was no time for Meri to take it slow and easy. She would have to get there as fast as she could, and hopefully be completely transformed when Serenity stepped into the room. There were so many things that would have to go in her favor for this to work, but it looked like there wasn't much choice in the matter. She took off at full speed, which ended up not being that fast since she was limping. Every bit of pressure on the leg hurt, especially when she had to make quick turns, but it had to be done. There were a lot of quick turns, since she had to try and run in-between people, causing them to shout and yell at her in annoyance. But Meri just ignored them, focusing on her goal.

Soon though, she noticed that someone was following her, chasing her with an Electrike. It was gaining on her, too, giving her no choice but to step on it. It hurt even more now and she hadn't gotten as much of an increase in speed as she had hoped. Now Meri would have to try and get them lost. There was an alley behind the strip club her and Serenity had passed by on the way to the restaurant. It looked narrow, but she had to hope it would allow an escape if she was pursued into it.

As she approached it, she weaved her way through several sets of people's legs, and when she thought she couldn't be seen by the duo trying to catch her, she jumped into the alley, and ran behind a dumpster towards the back of it. Meri poked her head out just enough to see the street, and saw that her plan had worked: the Electrike, and then the trainer, had run right past. Now she was all clear to head to the Pokémon center.

"Hey, what's a cute thing like you doing in a place like this?" the voice caused Meri to jump and spin around to look behind her. Standing there was a Poochyena, smirking at her. "You know, normally if I found someone in my territory, I'd be really upset, but for a pretty fox like you, I think I can make an exception…"

This was making Meri nervous. "Yeah, sorry, I've gotta go, I really have to get somewhere right away." She took a step back, but ended up against the dumpster.

"…if you don't mind keeping me company for a little while," his teeth were showing as he took a step toward Meri. Without another word, Meri took off again in the direction of the street. "Hey, get back here!"

Meri could hear his footsteps coming after her as she escaped from the dark into the bright lights. She got back on the path to the Pokémon center, still navigating her way through the crowded streets to try and lose the dog now after her. It wasn't very successful though; it was clear that he had had quite a bit of prior experience out here, running through all of the foot traffic with ease. It wasn't long before there was little separation between them.

Even worse, as he was getting on her heels, the trainer was back, sending his Pokémon after her as well. Meri was nearing where she needed to get to, but her chances of reaching It were looking more and more bleak.

When she reached the home stretch, she realized she wasn't sure how to get in. Should she try and go in through the front door, or should she try and find her room and hope that one of them had left the window open. She'd have to go through the screen if it was, but she had claws to deal with it. If she had the proper mental map, her room would be on the backside of the building, towards the side she was closest to.

The Pokémon center was in sight now, so she decided to make mad dash straight for it. It was risky since she would be exposing herself into the open, but it would also mean she could build more speed. To her fortune, it worked out even better than expected. She heard fierce growling behind her and the trainer shouting angrily. A quick glance revealed that the Electrike and Poochyena were in a writhing ball of green and gray fur, trying rip each other to shreds while the trainer stood by trying to separate the two so he could catch the rare Pokémon he'd miraculously spotted on the streets of Rustboro.

It was precisely what she needed, and she took advantage of it, giving a last little burst to her sprint. When she got behind the Pokémon center, she began jumping up to look in the rooms. The first one didn't appear to be it; it looked empty. The second wasn't it either; she could a couple having some fun inside it. Third time was, in fact, the charm. However, the window was closed. Now what? Serenity had to be close to getting here by now.

It was low enough that she could and then jump into it, but that wouldn't be enough to break through both a screen and glass. Maybe an attack would work. But what did a Zorua that was probably at a low level know? Meri racked her brain as she stood their panting from her exhausting trip here. _I think I might be able to use Pursuit, _she remembered that they learned it fairly early on. But that just raised another question: how is it that Pokémon perform their attacks? _Fuck! Why does this have to be so complicated?_

_Maybe if I think really hard about it and try to focus on using it…? _She did just that, closing her eyes and bunching up her muscles. Nothing seemed to happen at first, but in just a few seconds, something began to well up in her. A cool heat was the best way she could think of to describe it. Meri opened her eyes to see that there was a very faint purple aura surrounding her. It took her completely by surprise, "Holy shit, I can't believe that actually worked!"

But there was no time to waste. Meri shook her head to snap herself out of the temporary wonder and back into the task at hand, or paw. Whatever. Taking a few steps back, she got ready to make the jump. She didn't have much room, so Meri only got a few steps to build up speed before crashing into the window as hard as she could. It was very clearly solid, she found out after hitting it. But it did break. Meri landed on the ground less than gracefully, rolling a few more feet after hitting the ground and getting nicked by shards of glass along the way. The cuts weren't deep though, so the pain could be ignored for now. Hopefully it would all heal when as she transformed back into a human.

Her backpack was just a few feet away from her landing spot, at the foot of the bed farther away from the window, so she walked over to it. Then it hit her, _Right, no hands. I can't open it. And Oshawott was clipped to my dress. _ It may not have been fashionable, but she couldn't leave her Pokémon behind. She now either had to wait for Serenity to get back and try and get her to open the backpack for her, thereby exposing her secret. But that would have made sneaking in here to keep Serenity from finding out about her secret and going through all the trouble with the Pokémon pointless.

"Meri, you in there? What's the matter? I'm really worried," Serenity's voice came from the other side of the door. In a panic reaction, Meri dove under the bed just as Serenity walked into the room. "Meri?!" Meri guessed that her friend had seen the window. Her thought was confirmed when her friend ran over to where the window was. "What happened?!" A few seconds later Serenity moved away from the window and walked over to the bathroom. A few seconds later, the door opened again. "Please be okay…" Then the door was closed, and the footsteps getting farther away.

Guilt was overwhelming Meri now. While she had been freaking out herself, she hadn't thought about how Serenity was feeling or what she was thinking. Hearing the anxiety in Serenity's voiced pained her. _I'm really sorry…I wish I knew how to explain this. _Poking her head out to make sure she was definitely alone, she stepped out after confirming the coast was clear.

Now she had to think of what to do. It looked like Meri would have to run all the way back to the restaurant, but Serenity did the perfect thing by bringing Meri's clothes back to the room. They had been placed on her bed, neatly folded, with her heels set to the side and Pokéballs on top. _I really, really owe you after tonight, _she silently thanked Serenity.

Without anymore hesitation, Meri jumped onto the bed and pressed her nose in the button in the center of the Pokéball to expand it, then knocked if off of the bed in the hopes that it was Oshawott's. Her guess was correct; the shape of him was forming in red light, and then in no time at all, he was fully formed and standing on the floor.

After a few seconds of looking around, his eyes settled on the Zorua on the bed, startling him. "It happened again, huh?"

Meri nodded. "Yeah, while Serenity and I were eating at a restaurant. Looks like Rawst berries have the same effects as Watmel berries," she said with a sigh. "She didn't see me as a Pokémon, but I have to change back really quick and try and convince her I'm not insane."

"What did you do?" Oshawott asked, clearly worried that his trainer had done something really bad.

"I ran to the bathroom, and left my clothes there, but Serenity brought them back here. She already left," then she used her muzzle to point to window. "Oh, and I broke the window too."

Her Pokémon's eyes grew wide, "Uh oh."

"Yeah, exactly. She probably thinks I'm running around Rustboro naked and screaming right now," Meri faced him again. "So, I need you to open the backpack again really quickly so I can go find Serenity and let her know I'm okay."

"Right," he nodded then walked over to the backpack and opened the pouch that contained the healing berries. A few seconds of digging later, and he had the bag with the remaining berries in them. They were really bruised and wouldn't survive much longer, which could spell extremely bad news for her later, Meri realized, suddenly feeling a pit in her stomach open up.

As Oshawott opened the bag, Meri hopped down from the bed, landing a little painfully on the floor, but not so bad this time. Just as it was being opened, she stuck her face right in and took a bite of the first one she felt her nose press against. They did not smell good at all, especially after being sealed in a tight space for so long. It burned her nose and then her tongue as the pulp squished in her mouth. She shivered from the horrible sourness before the pain of transformation began. It spread over her body and she shed, just like the first time. It was less painful this time, but it was taking too long. There was no way for her to move in this state, so she had to wait until it was done before she could do anything. This time, Meri didn't waste any time lying on the ground; she put her dinner clothes back on and ran out the door with Oshawott in tow.

When they got out to the streets, Meri began asking people if they had seen a white haired girl the same age as her with big boobs. Some of them were confused when they said they were the same age, but Meri ignored that part so she could find her friend. They pointed her in the direction of the restaurant. After ten minutes or so of asking, then running, then asking, they found her, calling out Meri's name.

"Serenity! Over here! Serenity!" at the last call of her name, Serenity lloked over and saw the girl she'd been running around looking for her.

Immediately, she ran over and tightly hugged Meri, crying in joy that she'd finally found her. "Meri, you're safe!" they stood there in silence for a few seconds. "Where did you go? What happened? What's wrong, Meri?"

Meri scratched the back of her head, nervous and not really sure how to answer without sounding insane. "It's kind of hard to explain. I don't really want to talk about. But I'm fine, I swear," then she added, "And I'm not crazy! I know I left my clothes at the restaurant, but seriously, I'm doing totally fine!"

Serenity contemplated this for a second. "Are you sure? You've been acting kind of weird since we met up back in Petalburg City. Tonight was really scary, you know."

"I know. I'm so sorry about doing this to you, especially after took me out to dinner tonight. I wish I could…" she trailed off, sighing in sadness. "Let's go back to the room and get some sleep, alright?"

Serenity nodded and gave one last squeeze around Meri before they headed back for the night. The walk there was filled with painful awkward silence that neither of them knew how to break. Meri couldn't help but get the feeling the Serenity kept her gaze on her the whole way back. When they do back, Serenity noticed that the Nomel berries, including the one with a bite out of it, were on the floor. Jokingly, she asked "Did you have a sudden craving for Nomel berries?" She laughed a bit forcefully after that.

"Uh, yeah…" Meri responded sheepishly, unsure of what to say. "Something like that." She began undressing so she could get into her pajamas.

Serenity was doing the same, but stopped when she got down to just her underwear. "Do you know what happened with the window?"

Meri froze for second. "I was…being clumsy. I accidentally threw Wurmple's Pokéball through it," there was no way her friend would believe that; it was obviously a lie since the hole was there before Meri had the Pokéballs.

There was a pause before Serenity spoke again, as she thought about it. "Okay! You usually have better aim. We should probably go tell one of the Nurses, though."

"Okay, but let's do it in the morning," Meri suggested. "I'm really tired, so let's just get to sleep." She quickly got into her bed, closing her eyes and facing the other way, breathing a near silent sigh of relief when Serenity didn't insist. The light was turned off a moment later, letting Meri pretend that she was asleep and temporarily staving off potentially another onslaught of questions she really didn't want to have to answer.

It wasn't quite so simple as she'd hoped, though. After tossing and turning for quite some time in her bed, getting tangled in the sheets in the process, she realized it would take a little while to get to sleep tonight, as much as she needed it. Her next move took her by surprise, even as she spoke, "Hey, are you awake, Serenity?"

"Yeah," she turned over in her bed despite the springs in her bed protesting underneath her. "Couldn't get to sleep, either?"

"Nope," Meri said sort of shyly. There were several moments of silence before she continued, "I was wondering…"

"Mhmm? What is it?" Serenity seemed eager to talk, if a little sleepy.

Meri was taking her time with her words, knowing she would have to say it carefully to avoid hurting this girl's feelings. "Could you tell me some stories? Of like…when we were younger? And about some of the best times we've had together. I want to reminisce."

The question clearly left Serenity in surprise since she didn't answer right away, but soon the room was again dancing with her lively voice. "Sure! Hmm…where to start…" she pondered over it before starting. "Well, I don't remember it very well, only parts of it, but my mom tells me about it sometimes. When we first met, we were four years old. Our parents thought it would be a good idea to get to know each other since neither of us had a good friend at the time. We were playing with dolls at some point, and we got in an argument. You started pulling my hair. My screaming got my mom's attention from upstairs, and she came down to separate us. She said we were fighting over who had the prettiest doll," she laughed there, and Meri joined with short, nervous chuckles before Serenity continued on. "But I guess we made up at some point. I remember having a really good time when we said bye to each other, and you were smiling, too. That was ten years ago! I'm really glad we're still friends, Meri."

"Me too," Meri replied. As far as she felt, they had only been friends for a week or so, but that wasn't something she'd dare say out loud. "Can I hear more? I'm not tired yet."

Serenity yawned, "Yeah, okay," she finished yawning before going on. "Well, I'll never forget the first time we kissed, and all we've done since then," A feeling of curious dread filled Meri to the brim. "It's been a couple years since then, but it was such a nice surprise! We were having a sleepover at your house. Your mom had gone to sleep. We were playing a Pokémon Game on your Game Cube. We were making bets for when we won. It started out with silly things like running around your room with a lamp shade on the loser's head, or putting up their hair funny. But then, you said if you won, you wanted a kiss-!

_Oh God, it was me who started it!_

"-You won, and then you kissed me. You said it was your first kiss, that you had lied about kissing a boy, so you could look cool. I told you how it was my first one, too. I liked it so much I made the same bet, and when I won, we kissed again," she was grinning now. "That was it for that night, since we were kind of embarrassed about it. But a couple weekends later, we did it again. Except this time, after losing, we took our clothes off, too. After we had our shirts off, you jumped on me and took my bra off, and our chests were together…" her voice was so breathy as she said it. "We made out for the first time that night. It was so incredible. I'd never done that before. We just went further from there. The first time you sunk your fingers into me was magical. You were so nervous! We slept without our shirts on that night too, and your mom almost saw in the morning, but we were deep enough under the covers I guess "Last year, do you remember the first time I went down on you?" Meri could tell this was an especially fond memory. "I was so surprised at how much I liked the taste! You begged me to keep going and I did for so long. It was so amazing. I loved it just as much as you did. I still really like doing it…"

Meri could just see the piercing blue and white of Serenity's eyes as she stared at Meri's silhouette. She sheepishly looked away, not sure how to react or what to say, but Serenity filled the gap with her giggles.

"You have the same look right now that you did that night. You're still as adorable as ever when you blush," some more giggling bounced its way over from the other bed.

_Oh god, am I blushing? _But then Meri realized as she was touching her face, that even though she was blushing, it had to be too dark for Serenity to see.

"Because I remember just how you acted afterwards. That's how I know you're blushing," she spoke softly.

_They were really close to each other… _It was really interesting to hear about it all. The two of them stayed up a little while longer, Meri letting Serenity doing all of the talking; telling more stories about what the two girls had done together in the past. There was a little nagging guilt pulling at her stomach and it was getting increasingly difficult to push it away.


	11. It's That Guy!

**Notes:** Hello, good news everyone! It's a new chapter! Thank you to Soupy for editing this. And thank you so much to everyone who's been reading, following favoritng, and all that. Also thanks to guest for pointing out my forgetting to fix stuff. That's embarrassing

**Chapter 10**

There were hands roaming her body and hers were doing the same to the body next to her. Meri ran her hands down Serenity's sides, across her hips, and then one to her round ass, giving it a nice squeeze in the process. All this rubbing and warmth felt wonderful, she thought as she buried her face in Serenity's ample breasts. Just as she was getting settled there, a finger was place on the underside of her chin, guiding her face upwards, where her lips met with Serenity's in passion. They were so soft and moist, just like when they kissed for the first time-

"Oh God no!" Meri quickly sat up in bed, snapping herself out of the dream, panting and sweating. "Why would I dream about something like that…? Dreams are so weird," she face-palmed and dismissed it to possible after effects of being transformed into a Pokémon and then back to a human. Looking over, she saw in relief that the girl invading her dreams was still asleep, despite Meri's outburst at waking. _Let's get back to sleep._

Meri didn't have much luck though, as the embarrassment of the dream was sticking in her mind. What made it even more embarrassing was that, she was worried she had liked it for some reason. Such great curves, so much warmth and softness… _Okay, that's enough of that! I have to face my first Gym Leader tomorrow! I can't do that if I'm still sleepy! Time to get back to sleep._

It took a little while, but Meri did get back to sleep. To her disappointment, though, it was like she had only closed her eyes for a moment when she was opening them again. It was 8:12 though, which meant they needed to start getting ready for the day.

It was kind of hard for Meri not to think about her dream while she was in the shower since she was naked in both of them, so she got out as quickly as possible, even though she wanted to relish what could be her last hot shower in several days. She got dressed and put some make-up on for the first time in several weeks in preparation for the day while Serenity was in the shower. She seemed to have the same idea about staying in their longer than usual, so Meri decided to go downstairs and face the music about the window she'd broken last night as a Pokémon.

It was an awkward conversation, at least for Meri. The Nurse Joy there was very understanding about it, surprisingly, but it didn't make it much easier. They said they would get it fixed, and that in the meantime, the two of them would be moved to a different room. Meri mentioned that they might not need to do that since the two of them would probably be leaving later that day after battling Roxanne. The generous woman said that a room would be held, and to come back to say whether or not they needed to stay for a little while longer.

When Meri got back to their room, Serenity was out of the shower and most of the way dressed; just her shirt was missing. "Hey, pack all of your stuff up, we have to get out of the room so they can fix the window."

Serenity pulled her royal purple top over head, mumbling an affirmative response. "Just let me brush my teeth and hair before we go."

A few minutes later, they were in the main lobby of the Pokémon center, eating breakfast while the two of them put their extra clothes away into the PC. Meri was so nervous she could barely eat, but she managed to get some cereal down. Serenity, on the other hand, was much more collected, and went on with everything as though it were completely normal, still talking a million words a minute without a breath or a thought to separate her sentences.

It was a fairly short walk there. It didn't give Meri much time to build up her courage, but it also kept her from scaring herself away. Although she had gotten back on track with her battling yesterday, she was still anxious about how much of a step up it would be from battling random trainers to an actual Gym Leader.

The two of them were greeted by a friendly, elderly man soon after entering. He had a laser scanner in his hand and a smile on his face. "May I see your Pokédexes, young ladies?" He asked. Serenity handed hers over first. While he went through the process of scanning them, her continued speaking, "Roxanne specializes in Rock-type moves and is one of the best strategists in Hoenn. She can be hard to get to; very few manage to intimidate her. Since she took over eleven years ago, she has brought recognition to this city, including that of Kanto's Brock. Wait here," once he had finished scanning Meri's Pokédex, here disappeared into another room. Meri shot Serenity a quizzical look, but just received a shrug in return. They didn't have to wait long to find out where he had gone. "Here you go, complimentary bottles of water!"

"Uh, thanks," Meri said. She didn't see why they would need water since they had containers already. _But didn't they heal Pokémon in the games? _Maybe they had the same effect.

"You're very welcome!" He had quite a bit of enthusiasm. "Now, walk through the doors to your right and test your luck against the rock-hard will of Roxanne! After waiting for the other trainers ahead of you to battle first, of course."

_Great, _so they were going to have to wait a while to get their turns at the Stone Badge. When they stepped through the doors they were greeted by a gravel-covered floor that led to stairs onto some bleachers, where they could watch the battles. There were seven or eight people there, but it wasn't clear how many were there to battle or already had. A couple of them were really cheering on the girl down on the rocky, dirt battlefield. She was battling with a Beautifly, but it became apparent that she was struggling to defeat a Geodude.

She kept trying to use Stun Spore, but Roxanne just ordered her Pokémon to use Mud Sport, which caught the Spores and threw them away, never landing near the rock Pokémon. A Rock Throw later, and the Beautifly was done, ending the battle, much to the disappointment of the girl and her friends.

Roxanne walked over to the sad girl, smiling and began talking to her. As she did, Meri took notice of her appearance. She had grown up. Her hair was simply left to fall down just past her shoulders, which showed off how her hair was very soft and wonderfully thick. She also had changed attire to a pants suit, with grey on top and black on the bottom. The overall look was more mature and formal.

Once Roxanne had finished speaking to the defeated girl, she sent her up the bleachers where her friends were waiting. They hugged her and told her it would be okay, that they would try again another time. A name was called one of those friends, a boy, suddenly stood up with a resolute face. He ended up losing soundly, as well. It was clear this group had a long way to go before they could challenge a Gym, or at least this one.

The next guy up seemed familiar for some reason, but Meri couldn't quite place it. He looked to be about twenty years old, really tall, but not overweight from either muscle or fat. His hair was carmine red and spiky; his eyes had the same color. He looked ready for battle, standing firm, speaking with an even tone to Roxanne after she asked if he was ready. "Yes," he spoke with conviction. "I've waited five years for the chance to battle a Gym Leader, and now that I'm getting my shot. I can't lose."

The passion was felt in the air, and Roxanne picked up on it. "I get the feeling this is going to be a really fun battle." She grinned, clutching her Pokéball tightly. There were a few more tension-filled moments before she called out, "Let's begin! Go, Roggenrola!"

They simultaneously sent their Pokémon out. Roxanne's was a small purple and tan rock that stood on two feet, while the challenger's was an Electrike. That's when it hit Meri: _He was that guy chasing me last night! Good thing he didn't, or I might be the one he sent out just now. _

"Electrike, use Thunder Wave!" he ordered his Pokémon. The Pokémon ran up and threw a line of electricity streaming at the rock. It reached there before Roggenrola could move out of the way, successfully paralyzing it. "Now, Leer," he said. Meri wasn't sure if it had an effect since the rock Pokémon didn't react at all. The trainer's next move was slightly surprising, he pulled out his Electrike. But the Pokémon he sent out next made a much more sense against this opponent. "It's your turn, Seedot."

The acorn Pokémon had a similar body shape to its opponent, but moved a bit easier, bouncing back-and-forth on its two stubby feet in apparent excitement. "Now, Nature Power!" briefly, the ground began to shake rather violently, then a rock shot out of the ground just beneath the Roggenrola, blasting it several feet back. It didn't move after that, so Roxanne returned it. It must have either been Magnitude or Earthquake; both moves were super-effective against the rock-types that this Gym Leader preferred to use.

"Those were some really quick and creative tactics there; I didn't even get a chance to move," Roxanne complimented her challenger. "But now here's a real challenge for you: Go Sudowoodo!" Out of the Pokéball, the tree-like Pokémon stood there, with a big smile. "Use Rock Tomb!"

Where Seedot had been jumping, he was now stranded after an assault of rocks pelted him. Sudowoodo had pounded the earth, and with surprising speed and grip to slam them down using his round green hand-extensions. Meri wasn't really sure what they were, but the Pokémon knew how to use them well.

"Seedot, Nature Power again!" the red-haired trainer called out, "Try to direct it at the rocks surrounding you." Seedot followed the orders, and managed to break the rocks around him enough to move again.

But Sudowoodo was waiting. Immediately after the rocks had been broken up, Roxanne issued her next move, "Slam!" The tree charged into the Seedot with its midsection and sent it flying into the waiting arms of its trainer, who after whispering a few unintelligible words from where Meri sat, returned his Pokémon.

On the trainer's belt were only two Pokéballs, meaning that all he had left was his Electrike. He was at a real disadvantage now. While Rock attacks were not super-effective against Electric-type Pokémon, Electric attacks did next to nothing against Rock Pokémon. He knew he was in trouble, too. Meri could see his forehead start to shine from sweat as well as the grimace on his face. "It's your turn to really shine, Electrike!" He threw out the Pokéball, letting out the fierce-looking electric puppy.

"Give it your all, Hunter," Roxanne said from across the battlefield. "Make this a battle I'll remember for a long time!"

_So that's his name! _Meri now knew the name of her previous night's pursuer.

Hunter nodded, indicating he was ready to match wits with one of the brightest Pokémon battling minds in all of Hoenn to end the battle. "Here we go, Electrike! Let's show her what we can do! Start with Leer," he ordered. His Pokémon ran towards the Sudowoodo and gave it an intense look, causing it to freeze for a moment, which provided a small opening. "Thunder Wave, then run in circles around it."

The Thunder Wave was again successful, putting a fresh face of frustration onto Roxanne. "Use Mimic, Sudowoodo," she told her Pokémon. When Electrike came past the direction Sudowoodo was facing, a bright orb shot into Electrike, who seemingly felt nothing since it kept running, then shot back into Sudowoodo. "Perfect. Now use Thunder Wave."

It took Hunter by surprise, but he didn't panic. "Get away from there, and keep running, until it fades away. Use Howl when you're far away!" his Pokémon followed the orders, but it turned out Sudowoodo hadn't done anything; it was stuck in place, unable to move from the paralysis. Some of the worry that was previous visible had melted away. "Quick Attack!" Immediately changing course with impressive agility, Electrike dashed at its opponent. He hit him with his side, making a dull thud. While the tree-like Pokémon clutched its stomach, Electrike bounced off, landing painfully.

"Thunder Wave," Roxanne told her Pokémon, desperately trying to get in a move before the paralysis set back in. This time in worked, the wave of electricity traveled towards the canine Pokémon, who was just getting up and trying to shake off the stars in looked like it must have been seeing. It momentarily stunned it, but it had an easier time moving than the Sudowoodo.

The tension was back for Hunter. It was a tight battle now, where anyone could win. He was in a better position than when he had started the battle, but it would still be no easy feat. Everything he tried would be risky now. "Crunch!" Electrike was able to run at his opponent, although not as quickly as before. When he got near, the puppy leaped up and opened its mouth as wide as it could, only to close it with great force down onto Sudowoodo's face. The receiving Pokémon screaming in agony and tried to shake it off, swinging its head around. After several, very long seconds of the shaking, it swung back, throwing off its mauler, and in the process falling on the ground.

The two of them lay on the ground, twitching every now and then. Their trainers called out, praising them, encouraging them to get up before their opponent could. Nearly ten seconds later, Electrike began to push up with its paws, ever so slowly bringing itself to a standing position. He was on three paws, holding one leg tenderly, but Sudowoodo was still on the field of battle, barely moving, which meant Electrike had somehow pulled out the victory against the Pokémon with a huge advantage over him!

Roxanne returned her Pokémon in the beam of red light while Hunter ran over to his Pokémon with such pure, incredible joy running down his face in the form of tears. He picked up Electrike and help in the air saying "We did it, boy!" and other words of gratitude. When Hunter brought him close in a hug, Electrike began yelping in pain, scaring his trainer a bit. His hurt leg had been pressed into his body, it looked like. "Sorry, Electrike."

After taking sometime to collect herself, Roxanne walked over to the celebrating duo and put her hand out. GUY looked at her and then shook her hand eagerly. "That was one of the best battles I've had in a while. Very rarely can someone come in and win with a Pokémon with such a disadvantage like your Electrike did. I think you have a bright future ahead of you. I can tell just how dedicated and talented you are, not to mention how intelligently you battled."

Every word of praise from the Gym Leader meant so much to the trainer; the stream of tears just kept rolling, despite his attempts to wipe them away and compose himself. "Thank you so much, Roxanne, it means so much for you to say such kind things after waiting so long for my opportunity." He sniffled every few words.

Roxanne grinned. "You're welcome. You're like a more emotional version of myself when I was younger," she laughed a little. "Now, here's your Stone Badge. Take it with pride, and use it as evidence that you really do have the potential to go farther than most other trainers can dream of. I want a rematch some day, alright?"

Nodding, the guy's tears were starting to dry up, ever so slightly. "Yes, Roxanne, I will! I'd be honored!"

"Good! Here is TM39, Rock Tomb. You saw me use it in battle. It slams rocks into the opponent's Pokémon, either trapping it, or making it hard to move. Now get your Pokémon to the Pokémon center; he looks like he might have an injury," Roxanne warned him.

Again, he nodded and thanked her before heading out of the gym. He had finally stopped crying when she said that Electrike really needed to be seen at the Pokémon center.

After that, four more trainers went down to the floor to battle her. Each of them losing, some of them very soundly. It was as Meri had feared: this would be no cakewalk, even with the type advantage she was hoping to enjoy with Oshawott. Gym Leaders were a serious step up from regular trainers. Up now was Serenity, holding her Pokéball at the ready. When this was over, it would be Meri's turn. The realization terrified her so much now that it was almost here. _I hope I'm ready._


End file.
